The Tale of Marie Susanne
by AntiMarySue14
Summary: Marie Susanne was just an abnormally perfect demigod. But when she finally finds her destiny, something is wrong. Mary Sues are loathed, persecuted against! Can Marie use her unrealistic wit and power to discover why everyone seems to hate her?
1. Chapter 1

I never asked to be a demigod. I never fitted in at school. I've never been in control of myself or my powers. These powers killed all that was important to me, and left me to live with my mean, horrible, nasty, evil stepdad (his name is Tim).

My name is Marie Susanne. Until a while ago, I thought I was just a normal gothic girl who never fitted in. I wear black clothes most of the time, and my hair is a shade of deepest black. I have startling green eyes, and a pale face. I guess I could have been popular if I had wanted to at school, but why would I need that? I'm small and lithe, but I'm still pretty strong, so I could have been a cheerleader. I just couldn't be bothered to get up and drag myself to the tryouts.

On _that day_, I was in my English class. I'm really good at English. I always get As. But Tim doesn't appreciate my intelligence. Whenever my reports get home (with straight As on them) he will only read all of the teacher's comments and stick it up on the fridge. My mother used to frame my reports.

Anyway, I was listening to the teacher and contemplating my depressing back-story when suddenly a huge monster burst into the room. It was a big dog thing, and instantly all of the students jumped up and started screaming. Some of them actually fainted. I rolled my eyes and copied the last of my notes from the blackboard before standing up to face the demon dog thing. I had always been taught to never panic, just keep a level head. Of course my stupid, preppy, inferior classmates had to all go insane at the sight of one overlarge dog. I groaned. The dog growled at me. The only thing keeping me from jumping out the window like all of my classmates was my huge ego and my unrealistic amount of bravery. I was just about to give the monster some witty and entertaining line when _bam!_ A huge ball of light engulfed the room. I staggered backwards as three figures darted through the door.

"I'll take point, and you guys-" the new voice was cut off by a huge bark from the giant dog. I couldn't _see_. I shook my head while my eyes adjusted to the blinding light which had filled the room. I was just able to make out the shape of the huge dog when suddenly a cry of pain tore through the room. A human was sent flying through the air and crashed directly (and conveniently) into me.

"Ow!" I said. I could finally see what was going on, and watched as a boy around my age fell to the floor. He had black, messy hair and was wearing dark clothes. For some reason, as I was looking down at his helpless form, I got mad. _Really _mad.

"Hey, preppy dog thing!" I snarled, striding forward. The dog turned from the other two people it was fighting and growled at me. I held my ground, and the dog charged.

Suddenly, I was aware of every particle of time around me. I felt as though I was standing in a pool of liquid, liquid which was under my control. Without thinking, I raised my arm, and willed the liquid around the dog to slow. I watched as the dog slowly moved to a halt, frozen in the act of jumping on me.

And then it exploded into dust. I fell backwards, and collapsed, suddenly exhausted. Through my half-closed eyes, I was able to make out a blonde girl standing over me.

"Not _another _one," she was complaining. I frowned. Shouldn't they be thanking me, dropping to their knees in awe of my spectacular powers? Shouldn't they be frozen in shock at the logic-defying way I had killed the dog?

I noticed another boy coming to stand over me. He had shocking green eyes, a bit like mine, and a handsome face.

"Come on," he sighed. "She's one of us. Technically."

I was confused. They were looking at me as though I was some kind of disease. I just had time to register the hot gothic guy joining the blonde's side before I passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**For those who want to know, this is a parody. Marie Susanne is just another Mary Sue. But trust me, the plotline is going to get VERY interesting in the next chapter. This story is about what would REALLY happen when you dump a Mary Sue in the middle of a perfectly good novel. **

**(Btw: coming next chapter- EDWARD CULLEN! Cuz vampires are just sparkly Mary Sues.)**

When I woke, the light blinded my eyes for a few seconds. I was lying in a tent, but the door was open and sunlight was streaming through. I groaned and rolled over before memories came flooding back to me.

"Oh my gosh!" I shrieked and leapt out of the tent, where I barrelled (conveniently) right into the dark-haired boy I had seen when the big dog thing attacked. He leapt backwards like I might be contagious, and actually wiped his arm on the trunk of a tree, like I had infected the sleeve of his jacket.

"Guys!" he called, without looking at me. "She's awake!"

Two teenagers, about eighteen years old, crawled out of their own tents and walked towards me. I recognised them from before. The blonde girl looked me up and down with scary grey eyes.

"Hello," she said coldly. I glared at her. Then suddenly, a thought of vital importance hit me.

"What was that dog thing?" I asked. The blonde rolled her eyes, like I was stupid or something.

"That was a hellhound."

There was a second of awkward silence. I tossed my hair behind my head, confused.

"What's a hellhound?" I asked. Again, she gave me that snooty look of hers.

"It's a mythical creature from the Greek legends. The Greek gods are real, and you are one of their children, otherwise known as a demigod. It would be advisable for you to come to Camp Half-Blood, where you will be trained to fight off the monsters which will come and attack you. You will not know which god is your parent until you are claimed."

She said all this like it was from a script she had memorised by heart. Slowly, I processed her words, and gave a huge, dramatic gasp.

"I...am...a...child...of...the...gods?" I spluttered. The girl rolled her eyes at her green-eyed friend.

"Yes. I'm Annabeth, and this is Percy and Nico," she said, gesturing to her two friends. I frowned at her irritably. I know that if I were a normal human being, I would still be freaking out over the fact that I was a demigod. But this girl was starting to annoy me.

"Can't they talk?" I snapped. Annabeth yawned.

"Yes, they can. Unfortunately, Percy and Nico are the most common love interests for _your kind_," she replied. My eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "They can't talk to you. Neither can Connor or Travis Stoll. Otherwise, they might become infected."

"What do you mean, _my kind_?" I snapped. "I'm just like you! What are you talking about?"

"You'll find out when you reach camp," she said. "We're going to your house now, just to grab some luggage, and-"

"No!" I cut her off dramatically. This would be a great time to give some reference to my tragic back-story. "I refuse to go to Tim's house," I said, blinking back tears. "Never again."

Now, I'm not a snob or anything, but I would have expected these people to show a little more sympathy. To be honest, I thought that Annabeth would smile at me in an understanding way while Nico gave me a sad and sympathetic look (conveniently). I would have thought that they would have agreed, and set off without going to Tim's. But the horrible truth was beginning to dawn on me. These people _hated_ me for some strange reason. And I had no idea why. Instead of what I _thought_ would happen, Annabeth rolled her eyes once again, and Nico and Percy exchanged disgusted faces.

"Come on," she snapped. "Lead the way. We need to get to camp."

I wiped away my tears and stalked towards my evil stepdad's house. Technically, I should have wasted five minutes while the tents were packed up, but for some reason logical things like that just weren't important in my life. Sometimes I felt as though I was the centre of some strange and twisted world, where there wasn't any actual plot line. Anyway, even though I had no idea where I was, logic was defied yet again and I managed to find my way back to Tim's house. His house isn't important, so I won't bother describing it. I rang the bell while Percy, Annabeth and Nico all stood behind me, scowling.

"Hey, Marie!" Tim's twisted, evil face appeared in front of me. He had a deceivingly friendly smile, and his warm brown eyes didn't fool me. I knew what he was really like. I glared at him and shoved him out of the way before stomping up the stairs to my bedroom.

"I made you cookies!" he called up the stairs. I ignored him, and instead started throwing clothes into a suitcase. Even though I don't care about my looks, I conveniently managed to randomly pick all of my nicest clothes. I had also conveniently packed my make-up for a camp the year before. I zipped up the suitcase and dragged it downstairs. Percy, Annabeth and Nico were talking with Tim. He turned to me, a fake look of sadness on his face.

"You're leaving?" he said softly. I gave him a furious glare.

"How dare you say that to me!" I yelled. "I've tried so hard, but all you do is abuse me!"

"We're sorry she turned out like this," Annabeth muttered. "Camp will be good for her, I promise."

Tim looked like he wanted to say something else, but I pushed past him and threw open the door.

"I never want to see you again," I said dramatically. From behind me, I heard an exasperated sigh. Before anyone could open their mouths, I strode out of the house, dragging my suitcase, and onto the street.

"Um, that was really rude," I heard Annabeth say. I ignored her. She didn't know anything.

"So, how are we getting to this camp?" I demanded as soon as I was a good street away from Tim's house.

"We can take the pegasi," Annabeth said. "They'll get us to camp in around half an hour."

A normal demigod would have stared at her in confusion. Of course, a normal demigod would still be having spasms over the fact that they had defeated a hellhound and that they were the child of a Greek god. But I'm too perfect to be a normal demigod, so I just nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

**I know I'm updating almost every day here, but you have to realise that I am trying to write this in the classic style of a Mary Sue writer. This means that it takes me exactly thirty minutes to write a single chapter. Thanks to those who favorited and reviewed!**

Riding a Pegasus was incredibly thrilling. After about five minutes in the air, it was clear that I was naturally gifted at Pegasus riding (what a shock), and so I dove and twisted my ride as much as I could. Unfortunately, the Pegasus didn't seem to like me very much. 

"_Why am I stuck with the crazy one? She smells funny!"_

Normally, I would be really excited over the idea that I had a weird psychic connection with horses, but I didn't tell any of my fellow demigods. They were clearly jealous of me, and I wouldn't want them to feel even worse. I decided that instead, I would try and get the horse to like me. What horse doesn't like girls who are perfect in every way? I leaned forward and tried to scratch its neck.

"_Aargh! Help! She's trying to relate to me! Why? Why?"_

I decided that the rest of my journey wasn't worth describing after that.

Anyway, when we finally reached the camp- located on Long Island (my incredible geographic skills tell me exactly where I am) - I gasped. There was a cute little strawberry field, a ring of cabins, an arena, a river... it was almost as perfect as me. And that's really saying something. I made a huge loop around the ring of cabins to get a better look. There was an ugly cabin which was covered in barbed wire and red paint. And there was a cabin with grass on the roof. I was getting really excited, wondering which cabin I would end up in, when stupid Annabeth had to yell at me to stop drifting around the sky. I sighed, and steered my Pegasus towards the ground, pulling out a perfect dive. I landed in front of a larger cabin which was perched on a hill, overlooking the camp.

"... ninety-nine percent sure." Annabeth was talking to a guy in a wheelchair. I gave him a look of sympathy, (because I'm unnaturally empathetic and compassionate when it comes to the handicapped) and he nodded gravely.

"You're probably right, Annabeth. Nico, could you please get Mr. D?"

I hadn't noticed Nico until then. He was leaning against a wall, absently fingering a sword. Without so much as a glance at me, he nodded and went inside.

"So," wheelchair guy said to me. "I hear you managed to defeat a hellhound with your powers?"

I nodded, confused. Annabeth had told him about my stunning victory? How come she still hadn't mentioned one word about it to me?

"Hm," he murmured, deep in thought. I decided to introduce myself, just to show how sociable I am.

"I'm Marie Susanne," I said, holding out my hand. He ignored it.

"My name is Chiron," he said. He was still ignoring my hand. I held it there in front of him while Annabeth gave me strange looks. Finally, Chiron looked at my hand in front of him, frowned, and shook it. I smiled at him, and suddenly my extensive knowledge of Greek mythology kicked in. I gasped.

"You're Chiron!" I said excitedly. Now both Percy and Annabeth were giving me strange looks. Chiron stared at me as though I was insane.

"Yes," he said slowly. "I just said that."

"No, like... Chiron! The guy who trained the ancient heroes! But wait a second..."

I stared thoughtfully into space for a moment, the brilliant cogs of my brain hard at work. I then gave another huge, dramatic gasp. I could have sworn I heard a groan.

"You're a centaur!" I cried. Chiron opened his mouth to reply, when suddenly Nico returned with a fat, preppy man. He looked me up and down with a look of disgust on his face.

"Joy," he said. "Another one." I glared at him. This man was probably an authority figure. When I'm around authority figures, I need to act rude and selfish in order to prove my amazing rebelliousness.

"Mr. D, we don't _know_ if she's one of them yet." Chiron sounded doubtful. The man rolled his eyes.

"No, we don't I suppose. Which is why it is time for... _The Test_."

I tensed. I can't help it. I'm practically psychic; I can tell when bad stuff is about to happen.

"What test?" I asked. Mr D glared at me.

"The Test," he said, "will tell us whether you are one of _them_."

"One of what?" I asked.

"Silence! It will be explained to you later! Now, let the test begin."

I braced myself, ready for whatever monster or weapon was about to be thrown at me. I was great at fighting. I was also incredibly smart, so if he was going to be asking me questions about the Greek gods-

"Do you have a long, unusual and hard-to-pronounce name?"

I frowned. What kind of question was _that?_

"Um... not really," I replied. His expression didn't change.

"Are you abnormally brave?"

I wanted to say no. But that would be lying.

"Well, I guess..."

"Are you incredibly good-looking in every way possible?"

"Um...sort of."

"Are you amazingly athletic?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Are you a child genius?"

"Well, yes-"

"Are you more powerful than anyone else on the planet?"

"Yeah..."

"Do you have a tragic back-story?"

"Yes."

"Have you been diagnosed with ADHD or dyslexia?"

"No. Why would I have _that_?"

Mr. D ignored my question, instead staring forcefully at Chiron. Chiron sighed, and gave a small nod.

"Almost a perfect score," Mr. D said. I stared at him, momentarily shocked. _Almost _perfect? That wasn't even possible! I can't get anything less than perfect!

"She's one of them. Chiron, explain everything to her, and then send her off to the coal mines." And with that, the preppy man strode back inside. I stared after him. Suddenly, I was completely disorientated and confused. What did they mean when they talked about _them?_ What was that test even for? What was he talking about when he said coal mines? And, probably the most baffling of all, how had I somehow only scored an _almost_ perfect?

"Marie," Chiron said slowly, and I was jerked out of my silent panic. "You have to understand that sometimes there are... _mistakes_. It's not anyone's fault. Children can't help the way they are." I stared at him in confusion. What was he talking about? "Sometimes it's just better if these mistakes are kept away from everyone else, to prevent mental harm."

Mental harm? What in Hades? (I had only been with them for like, two hours, but I had already picked up on their Ancient Greek lingo.)

"Marie, not long after Kronos was defeated for the second time, these... _unusual_ demigods began popping up everywhere. They were practically perfect in every way. This normally wouldn't have been a problem, but so many strange things started happening when they arrived at camp. People would begin to fall in love with them for no apparent reason. Huge, dramatic battles would break out. Eventually, we decided that it would be safer for everyone if we built these demigods their own cabin."

I stared at him. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

"What do you mean?" I asked. Chiron sighed again.

"Marie, I'm afraid that you are one of these demigods. You are abnormally perfect, and if we allow you to mingle with the other campers, their lives could be put in danger. You will be placed in the Mary Sue Cabin."

I had no idea what a Mary Sue Cabin was, but I was guessing that it wasn't good. Of course, I had to pretend that I understood, so I nodded.

"Where is the Mary Sue Cabin?" I asked. Annabeth took a step forward, and pointed to some mountain in the distance.

"It's far away on that distant mountain," she said with a smirk. I gave her a death stare before squinting over at the mountain. I was just able to make out a small, dark speck.

"Percy," Chiron said, "could you please go down to the mines and get Edward? Ask him to show Marie around."

Percy nodded once, and headed down the hill. I was left with Nico, Annabeth and Chiron.

"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I believe that you have a cabin to attend to?"

Annabeth didn't answer, she just nodded once and headed down the hill towards the ring of cabins. I stuck the finger up at her retreating back. It took me a second to notice that Nico was following her.

"Will I find out who my Olympian parent is?" I asked Chiron. He shrugged.

"It's uncommon for Mary Sues to be claimed," he said slowly. "The gods aren't very big fans of them."

"So... what will I do?"

"Edward will explain it all to you. He's the leader of the Mary Sue Cabin. Percy shouldn't take long to get him... Ah! Here they are now."

Percy was coming back up the hill with a boy at his side. The boy had unusual bronze-coloured hair, strange yellow eyes, freakishly pale skin, and he was sparkling. Literally. It looked as though he had bathed in a tub of liquid glitter.

"Edward!" Chiron said in a strained voice. I don't think he liked this guy very much. "I have a new roommate for you. Her name is Marie. Marie, this is Edward."

Edward gave me a perfect smile, and held out his hand.

"Hello," he said. "My name is Edward Cullen."

"Wait a second. You don't have anything to do with demigods or camp half blood! You're a vampire!" I was in shock. For the first time in my life, I was confused. The balance of the universe had clearly been tipped.

Edward gave a wry smile.

"I am a sparkly Gary Stu. Apparently, I am the king of all Gary Stus, so I was placed in the Mary Sue Cabin."

I raised my eyebrows, and nodded slightly. His sparkly skin was really weird.

"Well," he said. "I'll show you around. Come on!"

I glanced at Chiron. How could he do this? I had a vague and unimaginative plotline ahead of me! How was my romantic interest going to notice me if I was far away on a mountain? Chiron didn't answer any of my unspoken questions, for some odd reason. I sighed bitterly, and hurried after Edward.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sigh... what I'm about to write is incredibly cliché. Apparently, I need to follow the **_**law.**_** Anyway, this is addressed to all those who have been living under a rock for the past few years. Edward Cullen wasn't created by me. He was created by Stephanie Meyer. He has corrupted thousands of innocent children, all of whom are now walking around wearing shirts that say 'Team Edward' *shudder*. Oh, and Camp Half-Blood doesn't belong to me either. It belongs to Rick Riordan. So does Annabeth, Percy, Nico...In fact, a good three-quarters of the stuff in my story does not belong to me. Now that this has been cleared up, please read on.**

Edward walked right past the arena. He acted as though the stables weren't there. I jogged to keep up with him as he casually walked along at an inhuman pace.

"Um... why aren't you showing me anything?" I asked, waving a hand at the rest of the camp. Edward gave a laugh which sounded like... bells? I gave him a weird look. When one perfect person meets another, it's important to always make that other perfect person feel inferior. Otherwise they might think that they are better than you.

"We don't _need _to see any of this," he said. "We don't even have lessons. Mr. D says that there's no point training a bunch of kids who are already perfect and already know it all."

"Then... why are we here?" I was really upset, all of a sudden. I didn't understand what was going on.

"Oh, this is just the quickest way to our cabin," he said. "It's a bit of a walk,"

Apparently, Edward the sparkly Gary Stu had a really strange sense of distance. 'A bit of a walk' turned out to be an hour-long hike. If I wasn't incredibly fit, and if I didn't have a never-ending supply of stamina, I would have collapsed in a heap. The route was treacherous, with jagged rocks and huge chasms and giant monsters which jumped out at random intervals and tried to kill us. However, Edward and I were both amazing at fighting, so the monsters didn't give us too much trouble. I was still a bit unnerved, though. It was almost as though the rest of the camp _wanted_ us to be killed, and so picked the most dangerous route possible for us to get to our cabin. I stayed quiet all through the hike, but when I saw the cabin, I couldn't hide my feelings any longer.

Why in Hades was the Mary-Sue cabin in the middle of a lake of lava? There was a flimsy little rope bridge leading up to the cabin, which was sitting on stilts about three metres above the lava. The bridge led up to an unstable-looking ladder, which we were obviously supposed to climb.

"Um," I said, uncertain. Which was really disorientating for me. I don't _get_ uncertain. I don't get confused. And I DO NOT score 'almost perfects' on tests. "Do they _want_ to kill us, or something?"

Edward just gave his retarded bell-laugh again and started walking across the bridge. I followed him immediately, because even though I was confused and uncertain, I still had my abnormal levels of bravery. I had noticed that either Edward was laughing like a church chime, or he was completely without personality. It was disturbing. Anyway, I climbed the ladder without a problem because, even though I am incredibly strong, I still have the weight of an anorexic five-year old girl. Edward swung the door open while I stood behind him, preparing myself to impress and/or intimidate whichever demigods dared to try and stare me down. Nothing could have prepared me, however, for what was in that cabin.

The door swung open, and I was almost immediately thrown back by a cloud of mixed scents- bubblegum, hairspray, lip gloss... my inhuman sense of smell picked it all up. Just as I got over the shock of the smell, and was trying to make out the inside of the cabin, a face appeared inches from mine. The girl had a perfectly straight fringe and long, waist length hair which was such a light shade of blonde that it looked white. Her eyes were electric blue. Her hair should have looked unhealthy, since it had obviously been allowed to grow wild for years, but it looked like she had come right out of a shampoo commercial. Her face was flawless.

"Hi!" she said. "I'm Mirabeloius! I'm the daughter of Zeus, the granddaughter of Hades, the great granddaughter of Poseidon, and I'm also related to Aphrodite, which is where I get my looks! I have an amazing power over the Mist, so I can make designer outfits appear whenever I want! I can shoot lightning and summon dead people!"

Before I got a chance to reply, another girl appeared right in front of me. She had eyes which were the strangest shade of grey; they almost looked purple. Her hair was the colour of mahogany.

"I'm Auralina! I'm the daughter of Hades, but I'm MUCH more powerful since my mom was a sorceress! She died in a volcano eruption when I was three, and I still have dramatic nightmares about it!"

"I'm Sharingelica! Percy's life was half-complete before I stepped into it and became the shining sun in his cold night! To him I am the most beautiful, amazing, dazzling, perfect-"

"My name is Akatorithialopie! I'm the child of Poseidon and Athena, and-"

It was incredible. I had been in the cabin for five minutes and fifteen-point eight milliseconds, (my brain is so brilliant that it acts as a stopwatch/watch) and I had already met Poiriallenissa, Merylinity, Isobellina, Accelmistiony, Oralina, Geraminalotus, Thresiomina, Zoelingsa, Roxinalee, Trinity-Rose, Renesmee (when you think about it that is a SERIOUS Mary-Sue name) and Ecklysiominasaringlitopia. They all seemed to be perfect in their looks, and they all seemed to have long and complicated family trees. If it wasn't for my outstanding memory, I never would have been able to keep track of it all. There were boys in the room, but the all seemed to be the alluring, brooding type. I was starting to feel right at home as I mingled with my new friends, when another girl strode up to me. This one was wearing some skimpy battle armour, had tangled brown hair, and a knife strapped to her thigh. Basically, she looked like your everyday Greek warrior/prostitute.

"Hello," she said. "My name is Lunarias, and I am the one and only daughter of Artemis, the maiden goddess."

"Wait a second!" someone called across the room. "I'M the one and only daughter of Artemis!"

"What? I am!"

"I am!"

I sensed I was about to get pulled into a fight between all of the one and only daughters of Artemis, so I slowly backed into another crowd. I found myself face-to-face with a beautiful girl with black hair that reached her knees. She smiled.

"Don't pay any attention to them. The children of Artemis tend to be a bit violent. I am Narlissarina, daughter of Hera."

"And _I_," another girl said, pushing through the crowd, "am Eloisinirius. Only daughter of Hestia."

"Lies!" another girl snarled. "There is only one daughter of Hestia, and that is me!"

My exceptionally good instincts told me it was time to leave. I spotted Edward, still standing at the front door, looking over his cabin without emotion, and used my excellent reflexes to get to his side.

"So, what do you think of the cabin?" he asked, his voice toneless. I shrugged. To be honest, I hadn't seen much of the actual _cabin_, since it was blocked out by the huge crowd of perfect demigods. The wooden walls were quite nice, though.

"Yes, the walls are quite nice," Edward said. I turned to stare at him in disbelief.

"Oh, I read minds," he said. "It's one of my abnormal traits which had me identified as a Gary Stu. By the way, you haven't seen all of the cabin yet. This is the common room. The bedrooms are all through there," he pointed to a door in the far corner, "and the library is through there, for the scholarly ones who like to sit in dark corners while thoughtfully reading."

"Wait, how does all of that fit into one cabin?" I asked.

"We have some incredibly and unrealistically powerful demigods in this cabin. They managed to fit everything in. The kitchen and dining hall is through there," he pointed again. I couldn't help noticing what freakishly long fingers he had. "...and the cells are through there." He pointed to a final door, just a few metres to my left. Unlike all of the other shiny, wooden doors, this one was made from reinforced steel. It also had five different locks. And motion sensors. And an eye-scanner.

"What do you mean, _the cells_?" I asked. Edward smiled.

"I'll show you, if you want," he offered. Without waiting for me to say yes, he strode over to the door and I had no choice but to follow. Edward entered three codes, used two keys, scanned his eyes, and the door hissed open. He ducked inside and I followed, the door slamming shut behind me. We were standing in a narrow hallway, with fluorescent lights illuminating everything. The walls were made of steel, I noticed. At the end of the corridor, the was another metal door, which was covered in so many locks that it would have made James Bond flinch. There were cameras everywhere, watching our every move.

"Safety first," Edward said. He clapped his hands, and one of the walls slid aside to reveal a closet. The closet was filled with... bullet proof body armour? I checked it through the huge database which was my brain again. Definitely body armour.

"Why do we need this?" I asked. I was more curious than afraid. My incredible lack of nerves kept me from experiencing fear.

"Just an extra precaution" Edward said in a monotone as he strapped the armour over his clothes. I copied him, and soon we were standing at the second door. Edward entered five codes, did another eye-scan and repeated his name into a microphone nine times. I felt a rush of excitement as the door slid open.

The sound of screaming sliced through the air. I would have jumped backwards, but I didn't do trivial things like that. Edward didn't hesitate at the screams, just strode forward.

The screams were bloodthirsty, and would have been terrifying to any normal soul in the world. We were in a huge chamber, with steel floor and walls. There were no windows, and the only source of light was a florescent light in the middle of the room. The walls were lined with cage doors, and above each door was a name. One said 'Percy', another said 'Annabeth'... the list went on and on. Bone-chilling screams echoed through the room, and I took a hesitant step forward to the cell door which was labelled 'Annabeth.'

Twelve Annabeths were in there, screaming their lungs out. However, something about these Annabeths was... different. All of them were slightly prettier than the real Annabeth, but all of them appeared to be completely insane. Every one of them had been forced into a straitjacket, but that didn't stop them from throwing themselves violently at the cage doors like maniacs.

"MYYY PERCY!" one of them shrieked, her voice an odd cross between a cackle and a wail. This seemed to set off a chain reaction, as more of the Annabeths joined in with the fun.

"DESTRROOY RACHEL!" one screamed. Behind me, Edward chuckled. I spun around to face him.

"Why do they look like Annabeth?" I asked.

"Some demigods are born thinking that they're Annabeth," he said. "We call them the OOC Mary Sues. Basically, they're Mary Sue versions of Annabeth, but they act differently to her. And they may look a little different."

"So... does _everyone _have OOC Mary Sues?" I asked.

"No. Only a few, like Percy, Nico, Thalia... sometimes the Stoll brothers. We can't let them near anyone. They're insane. The OOC Mary Sue Annabeths keep trying to kill The Oracle. And they practically tear Percy to shreds, trying to get a piece of him. We lock them here for safety."

"MYY PERRCY!"

"PERCY! SAAVE ME!"

"PERCY!"

"KILL RRACHEEL!"

"TEEAR HERR APART!"

I was about to go have a look at the OOC Gary-Stu Nicos when an alarm pierced through the air. I looked at Edward in alarm, but he just laughed.

"The tour isn't over yet," he said. "I still need to show you what we do with our time. Break's over. We have to get back to work."

Edward and I hurried to return the bulletproof body armour before rushing outside with the huge crowd of Mary Sues. They all seemed to be heading exactly the same way.

I didn't pay much attention to where they were going until I realised that we were heading into a cave. Caves reminded me of my depressing back-story. I was tempted to burst into tears and draw some sympathy, but when my eyes started to fill, I was simply ignored. I huffed, and followed my cabin into the cave.

We trudged down a steep slope for a bit, the light from above fading with every step. I was just about to put my supernatural night-vision eyes into action when the path became illuminated by a series of light bulbs lining the walls. I realised that all of the girls in my cabin were grabbing... hard hats. Thousands of hard hats hung on hooks. I turned to Edward for an explanation.

"Welcome," he said in an emotionless tone of voice, "to the coal mines."

I stared at him for three minutes, until I was able to summon up a syllable.

"What?" I snarled. He didn't react.

"The entire Mary Sue cabin has to spend all day, every day, in the camp's coal mines," he said. "Chiron says that it's much more profitable than strawberries."

"What about the other cabins?" I snapped. He shrugged.

"Mr. D says that we might as well make ourselves useful. Now, grab a hard hat and a pitchfork, and let's get to work."


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks for the nice reviews! And thanks to all those to added this to their story alert and favorited! This story is doing really well for something which was published around two weeks ago.**

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a snob. I just have high standards and expectations. And it was obvious that working in _COAL MINES _was not going to help me meet any expectations. As I pictured Tim's head in the rocks and swung the pickaxe with all of my might, I heard shrieks of terror echoing through the mine. Several of my cabin mates ran past, crying about tangled hair. I felt a pang of pity for them. How did Mr. D expect us to stay perfect in a dirty mine?

I decided that the mine didn't deserve the privilege of being described by me. All I will say is that I worked for hours until a bell rang overhead, and I headed out with a relieved, unrealistically perfect smile on my face. We had a race to the showers, every member of the Mary Sue cabin desperate to wash away the imperfections on their face. However, the moment that we started running, I noticed that we all seemed to be moving at exactly the same speed. I frowned. This wasn't normal. I had the running speed of an Olympian (the athlete variety) and I was NEVER beaten in races. But it appeared that _all _of my fellow Mary Sues had the running speed of an Olympian and was NEVER beaten in races. That would be hard for me to get used to.

After I had managed to get myself clean, I trudged back into the main room, where there was a stand-off between the ninety-three one and only daughters of Artemis. As I sat down gracefully in a chair, I couldn't help wondering if I had reached the end of my very brief plotline. Was I doomed to a long and boring life of shovelling coal? Surely I could amount to more than that. I was perfect in every way!

That uplifting thought was crushed as I watched Rolisianna, daughter of Artemis, fire an arrow of moonlight with deadly accuracy at her half-sister. Everyone in this cabin was perfect. Most of them were destined to end up with Nico, like me. That meant that he would have exactly two-hundred girlfriends and fifty boyfriends.

After fifteen more minutes of my 'let's contemplate meaningless and depressing stuff in order to add some vague shadow of a plotline' time, I was distracted by Edward's voice calling out over the shouting and screams of pain coming from the daughters of Artemis.

"Everyone! I've just gotten a message from Mr D. Thirty of us need to go to the Big House."

For a second, there was silence. And then every Mary Sue in the cabin joined the mad scramble to get to the doors.

"I can finally fulfil my destiny!" a girl beside me shrieked. "I will marry Percy!"

"YOU WILL NOT! He is MINE!"

I quickly manoeuvred around the two would-be-fiancées of Percy, and rushed towards the doors. I could almost hear the overdramatic voice in my head, screaming '_this is your chance!_' But just as I reached the door, Edward decided to crush my dreams yet again.

"Wait!" he yelled. "_I _will choose!"

There was another beat of silence, and suddenly Edward was faced with hundreds of big, flawless pleading eyes.

"Right," he said. "If your name is over forty syllables long, please step forward."

Ten girls stepped forward, and I eyed them all with loathing. How dare they steal my cheesy destiny away from me?

"If you are related to more than fifteen gods, come forward," Edward said. Ten girls and seven boys stepped onto the doormat of destiny. That meant that only three more could be picked. I was staring at Edward with huge, pleading eyes.

"Right," he said. "Ken, you can come forward because after all these years, you've still managed to keep up the myth that you are straight." A tanned guy with brown hair walked forward. He was shining, as though he had been fashioned from a lump of plastic, and his clothes looked like something you would find on a women's wear runway. It took my three point nine five seconds to figure out that I was looking at a life-sized Ken doll. Creepy.

"Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, you may come forward because you are the main character of what has been dubbed the worst fanfiction ever written." A gothic girl with black lipstick and black clothes walked forward to join Edward's side. I felt a rush of jealousy consume me, which was a surprise in itself. I don't _get _jealous.

"And, because her name is so coincidentally close to the name 'Mary Sue', Marie Susanne can come forward."

I would have squealed in delight, but I had a reputation to uphold. I yawned, like I had been expecting it all along, and sauntered up to Edward, ignoring the murderous glances being directed at me. Of course, inside, I was leaping for joy. I would see Nico again! And then he would declare his undying love for me, and conjure a white pony from the ground, and we would gallop off into the sunset where we would embark on a dramatic and corny quest to save Olympus...

"Hey poser! R u cumin or not?" I turned to see the girl named Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way glaring daggers at me. Without a word, I followed her.

We trudged towards the camp, occasionally stopping to defeat a monster. I realised I still didn't have a weapon. I would have to find a dramatic and unusual way of getting my hands on one. A girl named said hi to me, but I tried to avoid her. The only reason she had gotten in was because her name was over fourty syllables long. That didn't take _real _talent.

Anyway, we walked for half an hour, none of us getting tired, until we finally reached the camp. Edward suggested that we go via the coal mines, but Ebony had thrown a huge fit at him and had started crying tears of blood, so he dropped the idea. We made our way to a dining pavilion, where there were a bunch of tables scattered around. Heads turned, and I was suddenly faced with hundreds of demigods glaring at us with hate in their eyes. Beside me, Ebony was putting up the finger at anyone who so much as glanced at her. The man named 'Mr. D' stood up, and joined all of the children glaring at us.

"Before anyone says anything, this is an extra challenge for those wishing to play Capture the Flag. If you beat a Mary Sue, then you are officially the greatest champion of them all. Remember: use dirty tricks, any magical items, and _show no mercy _towards the Mary Sues!" The campers cheered at this, and we all glanced at each other. Mr. D smiled at their reaction. "Now, if you kill a Mary Sue, you have no chores for a month. If you beat the Mary Sue team, you get no chores for a month. Any questions?"

I was getting annoyed with this guy. First _almost perfect_, and now this? Just to annoy him and to display my great rebelliousness, I put up my hand. Without waiting for him to pick me, I yelled, "What happens when the Mary Sues win?"

Mr. D smiled, like he'd been hoping someone would ask that question.

"Then," he said, "The Mary Sue team will be able to eat with us the pavilion for one whole night." He pointed to a table in the corner, and I gasped. The table was just like all of the others, but it was balancing delicately on the edge of a gaping crevice in the ground. The wind whistled through the pavilion, and the table rocked dangerously.

"Wat da hell?" Ebony said. Mr. D grinned.

"That," he said, "is the Mary Sue table. Sometimes we get lucky, and they fall off. Now, all of those playing Capture the Flag off to your stations! Have fun!"

As I followed my team off to play Capture the Flag, I realised something. Even though I had never heard of Capture the Flag in my life, I knew exactly what it was.

What a shock.


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm sorry this took so long! I was away on camp, forgot to mention it in the last author's note. Oh, and this is just a warning: make sure you aren't too attached to any characters in this story before reading this chapter. Enjoy!**

I had never been taught the rules of Capture The Flag, but of course I already knew them. I had to wonder, though, whether the other campers had been taught a different set of rules. I had always thought that the aim of the game was to steal the other team's flag. But the cabins playing us all seemed to be completely ignoring the flags, and seemed to be Hades-bent on killing as many Mary Sues as possible.

"How are you doing?" Edward asked conversationally as he dodged a couple of arrows. He was doing an amazing job at fighting. Of course, we all were, but Edward wasn't the head of the Mary Sue cabin for nothing.

"I'm alright," I answered, casually dodging a spear which had been aimed for my head. We had picked the perfect strategic location for our flag, and Edward, Ebony and I had been placed on defence. We were fighting under a canopy of green in the heart of the forest, with wood nymphs swearing at us if we so much as brushed against their trees. The enemy teams were hiding in and behind the trees, shooting volleys of arrows at us. None of us had been hit yet, but that didn't seem to stop them.

"U preps!" Ebony shouted, a gun randomly appearing in her hands. I glanced at Edward in confusion, and he shrugged. "Ur not efen gud enoff too cum nd fite us wen u rnt hidin in da treez!" She began shooting wildly at the woods. I heard shouts and screams of pain, but Ebony kept shooting, artfully holding the gun with one hand and sticking her middle finger up at the hated preps with the other. Gunshots ripped through the air, and I frowned. Ebony appeared to have multiple personality disorder. She was crying tears of blood one minute and shooting people the next. Edward, on the other hand, had no personality at all.

"So," I said, trying to strike up a conversation. Ebony ignored me and kept shooting the preps. Edward smiled, his skin still sparkling in the sun. "How exactly did you end up here?" I asked him.

"Well, first there was this girl who I drove to the point of absolute insanity... I had random personality changes in front of her, I watched her at night-"

"Wait, what? You watched a girl sleep at night?"

"Isn't that romantic?"

"In a really creepy way. How old are you?"

"Over a hundred."

"WHAT? That makes you a freaky stalker pedophile!" I was shocked. I was so shocked that I didn't even notice my Mary-Sue senses tingling, telling me when a huge, dramatic event was about to occur. Edward apparently didn't notice them either.

"I'm immortal," he said tonelessly. "I can't be-"

"AVARDA KEVARDA!"

The cold, high pitched voice echoed through the trees, causing the entire voice to fall into a dramatic silence. Green light flashed through the trees. Ebony started randomly crying tears of blood, and I stared at Edward uncomprehendingly.

He had slumped face forward onto the ground. For a second, I tried to figure out why the would-be-immortal Edward Cullen was looking so very, very dead, when a man stepped out from between the trees.

"Ha! Take that, Cedric Diggory!" he said triumphantly. Ebony gave a huge gasp.

"Vloddymort!" she cried. The man turned to face her, and I would have recoiled in horror if I wasn't so unrealistically brave. He had crimson eyes, with slits for pupils, and a flat nose. He was completely pale. A snake hissed at his feet.

"Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way..." he hissed. "I spent a months trapped in your ridiculous plotline."

Ebony aimed her gun at the guy's face. He smiled and flicked his hand. The gun disappeared to whatever magical dimension/storage space the guy had at his disposal. I suddenly noticed that almost half a page had been written, and I hadn't spoken at all! Hurriedly, I gave this random the best sassy/witty/brave comment I could come up with.

"Oh look. It's another bald villain. Remind me to get you some shampoo for your birthday," I said. The guy raised his eyebrows (even though technically speaking he didn't have eyebrows) and stared at me. "Who in Hades are you, anyway?" I asked. It wasn't the most Mary Sue-ish question, but I was curious. The random dude drew himself up to full height, and spoke in his shrill voice.

"I," he said, "am Lord Voldemort."

There was a second of silence, in which my eyes had time to get endearingly big.

"But that doesn't even make any logical sense!" I cried. "You have nothing to do with this story! Why are you here?"

Voldemort smiled. "This is a Mary Sue story. It doesn't need to make sense."

"But...why did you kill Edward?" I asked. I reminded myself to act all devastated about Edward's death later.

"U poser!" Ebony shrieked at Voldemort. "Y da hell r u efen here? I fought dat no bad stuf gut in2 dis plas anywayz! Dis dosnt mak snese!"

Voldemort paused for a few seconds to translate from goff-to-English, and then laughed. "It's a Mary Sue story," he repeated. "It doesn't need to make any sense, as long as the main character gets a chance to show off their amazing powers."

I gasped, comprehension finally sinking in. "That's it!" I said excitedly. "I have to have an epic battle to the death with you! And then I'll come out on top and discover my powers and get a whole lot of glory!"

"Wait," Voldemort said. He looked kind of mad. "_This _is what I've come to? Bringing glory to Mary Sues? What have I ever done?"

There was a second of silence, until I said, "Um... I would answer that, but it would kind of take a seven-book-series to explain it all."

"Oh."

There was another awkward silence. Ebony stood there, utterly confused, while Edward's dead body lay on the ground. Then something in my brain clicked. I grinned triumphantly, and skipped over to Edward. I was finally going to get an impressive dramatic showdown!

"No!" I cried, falling down beside Edward. "Why? Why?" I allowed tears to stream down my face while I shook Edward.

"Um... delayed reaction much?" I heard Voldemort mutter behind me. I ignored him.

"Come back Edward, please come back!" I begged, shaking him some more. I carried on for a couple more minutes while I prepared myself, and then finally turned to face Voldemort. My expression was black with fury, and my eyes were filled with death. I had always been good at drama.

"I'll kill you!" I screamed, running at Voldemort with my sword drawn. He stared at me in alarm.

"Do you have a multiple personality dis-"

He didn't manage to get the sentence out. I sliced upwards with my sword, and he only just had time to jump out of the way. The blade of my sword nicked his chin, and he hissed in pain. I smiled. It was going just as I had planned.

A blast of light erupted from Voldemort's wand, and I was sent sailing towards the river, where I landed with a huge splash. The water seemed to mysteriously cushion my fall. I got up, spluttering, and watched as Voldemort flew towards me. He was surrounded by inky black clouds, which would form strange and frightening shapes around him. Voldemort was apparently flying towards me with no effort, sailing unnaturally along while the shadows at his licked at his ankles.

I dragged myself to my feet while the currents swirled around me. The sky had conveniently been filled with dark, heavy clouds in the space of twenty seconds.

Voldemort's wand sliced through the air again, and a deep cut opened itself in my cheek. I cried out in pain, and fell backwards into the water again. He smiled before saying the words which would trigger my incredibly awe-inspiring powers.

"Time to die like Eddie!" he crooned. And then something inside me snapped. I dragged myself to my feet once again, and before Voldemort could do anything, I waved my hand through the air with one powerful motion.

I felt a tugging inside of me as a huge tidal wave formed itself from the river. It rushed up above my head, floating in the air like a giant, liquid donut. Very dramatic. I smiled in satisfaction and sent the water crashing down on Voldemort. He yelled in shock as he was swept into the river with me. I only just had time to grin cheerfully at my amazing powers before a burst of red light came from Voldemort's wand. I didn't have time to react (well, I did, but that wouldn't fit the whole dramatic battle scene.) But then, suddenly, another wave came bursting out of the water and swept Voldemort far, far out to sea. The last words I heard from him were "Oh, come on! That's cheat-"

The clouds rolled right back and the sky became clear again. I stood there in the water with a huge grin on my face, until I heard a huge gasp behind me. I turned, expecting applause. Instead, what I saw was Annabeth, Percy and Nico, all staring at me with utter disbelief (and revulsion) on their faces.

"No," Annabeth said. "That's not allowed. Why? Why? WHY?"

"I..." Percy seemed to be restraining himself, "am going to KILL my dad."

I stared at them all. What on earth were they talking about? Then, I looked up, and gave a gasp of my own.

Swirling above me was a green trident.

MEANWHILE, ON MOUNT OLYMPUS:

"POSEIDON!" the furious shriek echoed through the streets, and all the nymphs exchanged nervous looks.

Athena, Aphrodite and Hera were all storming towards the Throne Room, with identical looks of black fury on all of their faces. Athena was fingering a sword. They all burst into the room, where Zeus and Poseidon were laughing like maniacs, watching a swirling image which hovered in front of their faces. The image showed a girl with a trident floating above her.

"POSEIDON, YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO FEEL SAFE WHEN YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT EVER AGAIN!" Athena was beyond the point of restraint, but Poseidon ignored her.

"Zeus!" Hera looked as though she was willing to become the newly appointed goddess of decapitation. "You let this happen!"

Zeus laughed cheerfully. "Look at their faces!" he chortled.

"YOU CLAIMED A MARY SUE!" Aphrodite was more dangerous than both Athena and Hera combined. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT SICKENING LOVE STORIES COULD COME OUT OF THIS? DO YOU REALISE WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY REPUTATION?"

Poseidon and Zeus continued to roar with laughter. "I WILL KILL YOU BOTH!" Athena shrieked, advancing on Zeus. Once again, they were ignored, until Hera finally stated the obvious.

"You're both drunk, aren't you?" she snarled. She was met with delirious laughter from both of the gods.

For the rest of the day, cries of pain could be heard from the Throne Room. Nymphs, godlings and satyrs all cowered in their homes, waiting for the epic battle to end. It was noticed that from then on, Poseidon spoke with a noticeably higher voice, while Zeus seemed to have a slight limp. The moral of this chapter is: Don't EVER, EVER make a Mary Sue more powerful. It will only lead to overdramatic battles. (Cough cough Bella Swan cough cough.)


	7. Chapter 7

**I am so very proud of this story. Since I'm getting so many favourites/subscriptions, I'm thinking of having a Mary Sue competition. Basically everyone either sends me a message or leaves a comment, in which they describe their own Mary Sue. Make up the incredible powers, family tree, depressing back-story, etc. I'll choose the most lol worthy Mary Sue and incorporate them into the story. I still haven't decided whether or not I should hold the competition, so just tell if you like the idea or not. Now read on!**

No-one told me what was going on as I was dragged over to the Big House. They didn't even look at me. I flipped my hair and batted my eyelashes with all of my might, but Nico didn't spare me so much as a glance.

I was starting to have serious doubts about this camp when, as I walked past, a dozen arrows were fired at my head. I used my excellent reflexes to jump out of the way, but Nico didn't even ask me if I was okay. He didn't even rush me to the hospital.

Nico was the worst true love ever.

When we reached the Big House, Percy and Annabeth locked me in an empty room, and went to talk to Chiron and Mr. D (I had magically learned everything there is to know about Mr. D during the past few days. My psychic powers told me all about him.) I decided to take this opportunity to be a damsel in distress.

"Oh please, please, please, please, please let me out!" I sobbed, pounding my fists against the door. "I'll do anything! Just let me out!"

I continued on for another ten minutes, until stupid, preppy Annabeth yelled "SHUT UP!" through the wood. I stuck my middle finger up in her general direction, and leaned against the door, using my Super-Sue hearing to eavesdrop on the conversation next door.

"No!" Annabeth was hissing. "I refuse to allow-"

"_Allow_, Hannahbell? I was under the impression that _I_ was in charge here." I was proud of my Sue Skills. I had met Mr. D once, but I could already recognise his voice!

"Percy, I know you don't like it, but it is the way things are here," Chiron said.

"_No!"_ I don't care about tradition! Let's give her to Hades as a present and save us all a whole lot of trouble!"

"I could finish her off. I know some guaranteed ways to kill Mary Sues." I felt a dramatic stab of pain at Nico's voice. He wanted to kill me! Why? What had I ever done?

I heard Chiron sigh.

"It's happening, whether you like it or not. Nico, go and get Ebony for me. Annabeth, please let Marie out."

The sound of footsteps heading straight towards my door threw me into a panic. I couldn't let them think that I was a nosy eavesdropper. I leapt over to the window and began thoughtfully gazing out at a tree just as the door swung open.

"Chiron wants to talk to you," Annabeth said coldly. I turned to meet her hard stare.

"Great," I replied, crossing my arms and jamming as much hatred as I could into one syllable. Annabeth rolled her eyes and stalked out of the room with me in tow.

Unfortunately, Nico wasn't in the room. Percy, Chiron and Mr. D stood in front of me, all of them with identical expressions of disgust on their faces. I stood there patiently, waiting for them to shower me with glory.

Chiron cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Mr. D, who sighed.

"I'm afraid, Mary, that it is one of the laws of this camp that any claimed demigod will be placed in their parent's cabin. No exceptions."

I stared at him in shocked disbelief. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

"As much as everyone in the camp hates you and wants to kill you, we have no choice but to place you in Poseidon's cabin. You will eat at the Poseidon table, follow the Poseidon timetable and sleep in his cabin."

I glanced at Percy and Annabeth. Percy was looking positively murderous and was alternating between glaring at me and glaring at Mr. D. Annabeth was holding a knife and was staring intently at me, as though she was picturing the hilt sticking out of me.

"Alright," Chiron said, interrupting my train of thought, "the harpies will collect your suitcase from the Mary Sue cabin, and you can make your way to the Poseidon cabin. Percy will show you the way, and you can-"

He was interrupted by a sharp rap at the door. Nico stepped into the room, (I flipped my hair and he ignored me) followed by Ebony and another girl I didn't recognise. She had red hair, and was wearing ragged jeans which were covered in pen marks. Her shirt was also covered in hand-drawn pictures, and bore the words _Apollo's Bitch_. Instantly, my Sue Senses told me to hate her. Her fake smile reminded me of Tim. Another two seconds, and she would be baking me cookies without even asking me what flavour I wanted (Read chapter two. You'll get it.).

"Marie," Chiron said, "I'd like to introduce you to our Oracle, Rachel Elizabeth Dare."

The evil redhead girl rolled her eyes and didn't even glance at me. Beside her, Ebony crossed her arms.

"Y am i here?" she asked. I was surprised. That was the most grammatically/punctually correct sentence I had ever heard come out of her mouth.

"We need a new leader for the Mary Sue cabin," Chiron said, "and Ebony, you seem like the right choice."

Ebony nodded. "Kawaii," she said. I saw Percy and Annabeth exchange confused looks. I had no idea what she was on about, which was a weird feeling for me.

"So... that's it. Rachel, could you please document the new leader of the Mary Sue cabin?" Chiron asked politely. I scowled. How dare he be polite to this monster?

"Sure," evil-redhead-from the depths of the underworld said. "How many ways are there to spell your name?" she directed at Ebony. Ebony frowned, obviously deep in thought. "Deres Enoby, Eboby, Iboby, Ibony, Inoby, Ebory, TaEbory, Tata, Tara-"

"Got it," Chiron cut in. "Um... Percy, would you like to show Marie to your cabin?"

Percy sighed and gave a reluctant nod. He stalked over to the door, threw it open and without waiting for me to follow, strode out of the room.

RANDOM AND POINTLESS TRANSITION

"Right." I watched as Percy drew a circle on the ground with a piece of chalk. "Everything inside the circle," he pointed to the circle, which was big enough to hold one person as long as they were standing up, "is yours. Everything outside the circle," he guestured to the entire cabin, "is mine. Understood?"

I understood, of course, but it didn't make any sense.

"Aren't you supposed to slowly befriend me, and then regard me as a sister? And then you'll teach me everything you know about water manipulation?" I was confused. My world was falling apart! It had been almost a week since we'd met, and Nico still hadn't proposed to me. Now my half-brother wasn't going to love and admire me?

Something was wrong with the world.

"Um, no." Percy rolled his eyes, and placed my suitcase into the circle.

"How am I supposed to sleep?"

"Since when do you even _need_ sleep?"

That was a fair point. I was about to elaborate on it, when a sudden thought crossed my mind.

"Hey, you know when the hellhound attacked me, and I made it...slow down?"

Percy yawned. "Yeah."

"It was almost as though I was manipulating the very fabric of time itself, which no ordinary demigod daughter of Poseidon can do."

"You're probably related to Kronos somehow. All Mary Sues are. Now shut up and go to sleep."

I gave him my signature evil glare, when I suddenly realised that it was dark outside. The time wasn't really important in my world, but I was still a bit surprised.

"I don't have a bed."

"I don't care."

"I haven't showered."

"I don't care."

'I don't care' seemed to be Percy's catchphrase. Storing this information in my hugely bloated brain, I stalked out of the cabin and went to find the showers. This seemed like a fairly under dramatic way to end a chapter, so I took a detour and walked past Nico's cabin eight times.

It was awesome. Green fire burned in torch brackets, and the entire place was made from obsidian. I accidentally managed to get five good looks in through his window.

Nico was sitting on his bed, fingering some kind of metal object. I tried to think of a nice, dramatic sentence to end the chapter, and after five minutes, I had one.

His hair fell over his eyes, eyes which looked as though they had seen far too much.

DUN DUN DUN. (It didn't really take me five minutes to come up with that. It took 0.5 seconds.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Okay, the epic Mary Sue competition is officially ON! All you have to do is leave a comment describing your own Mary Sue or Gary Stu. You can follow tradition and base it on yourself if you like, or you can just create the most ridiculous Mary Sue imaginable. I'm going to need a name (the weirder the better), a description (physical appearance, personality, hobbies), and the most pathetic tragic back-story you can come up with. Send me a message or leave a comment as your entry. The competition will end on the 28****th**** of July. Create the greatest, most epic Sue ever, and one will be picked to star in the story! Oh, and a few of you have already sent in a couple of ideas for Mary Sues. I'll be happy to accept these into the competition. Wow, this is a long author's note. **

The next day was absolutely fantastic. I got to go Pegasus riding (where I was top of the class), I attended archery class (where I outshone all of the Apollo kids), I participated in sword fighting (where I beat every opponent) and I went rock-climbing (where I set a new record). I was practically jumping up and down with happiness, but for some reason everyone in the camp seemed to hate me even more. The children of Ares glared murderously at me whenever I walked past, and would immediately start sharpening their lethal-looking weapons. Apollo's children were obviously jealous of my superior archery skills, and would fire sonic arrows at me if I so much as breathed too loudly. Every single cabin in all of Camp Half-Blood seemed to be Hades-bent on my destruction. Even a daughter of Demeter took the time to send ravenous man-eating vines after me.

After a day of being attacked, shot at, nearly eaten and threatened ruthlessly, I would have expected my new-found half brother to comfort me. I came striding into the cabin with my hair still perfect and without a trace of sweat on me, the Ares kids still yelling insults at my back. I rolled my eyes. They were just jealous because I better than them at absolutely everything. Anyway, Percy was standing in front of a small fountain which had been placed right in the middle of the cabin. I instantly recognised it as some kind of Iris-Message fountain. I decided to give a very unsubtle cough to let him know I was here. He spun around and scowled at me, but didn't say anything. I yawned (even though I wasn't tired), and flopped down on a random bed. I was probably the only person on the planet who was able to flop down on a bed and still look graceful.

Awkward silence hung in the air for a few minutes, until Percy finally stalked out of the door. I smiled. He hadn't tried to kill me! Our brother/sister relationship was really progressing.

I had twenty eight minutes and fifteen point eight seconds until dinner, so I decided to sort out my wardrobe. I zipped open my suitcase and threw all of my gothic clothes into a wardrobe, where they all magically piled themselves up into neat little rows. My magical Mary Sue purse (it had a never ending supply of money so that I could spend millions on clothes and shoes, even though I didn't have a job) earned a special place on my bedside table. I glanced back at the circle Percy had drawn. I was supposed to be in that circle, but that might ruin my bad-girl reputation. Instead, I swivelled my head around again and frowned at my bedside table. Something was missing.

Suddenly, a breathtaking wave of inspiration hit me. Of course! I needed _stuff_. Sentimental items which would remind everyone who looked at my bed that I had a tragic past. Perhaps a photo of my mother! And I should also get some kind of magical item! It could be given to me by some kind of mystical Zen guy, who could tell me that I would do great things in the world. And I also needed a weapon! Something incredibly unusual which no-one at camp had ever been good enough to wield.

Options ran through my head, and I grinned excitedly as I hurried over to my suitcase. I grabbed a notebook and a pen, and hurriedly started writing down ideas in my elegant handwriting.

_What I Need:, _ I began, and made myself a quick list.

_At least one mystical animal companion_

_Magical item which will be the envy of everyone in the camp._

_Awe-inspiring, super-powerful weapon_

_Cool armour_

I smiled in satisfaction, and stuck the list to my headboard. I would check the items off as I received them. Then I frowned. How in Hades was I going to get this stuff? I wasn't allowed to leave the camp!Then a wave of inspiration hit me (again). I just needed to find someone who had experience with getting what they wanted, breaking rules and having unrealistic power. And that person was (dramatic dot dot dot)

"Ebony," I hissed. I had used my Sue Stealth to get over to her, but Chiron would have to notice me eventually. Well, he wouldn't, but it's just more dramatic that way.

We were at the dining pavilion. Since the Mary Sue Cabin had technically won Capture the Flag the night before, everyone on the team had been allowed to come and eat with the rest of the camp for one night. I watched as the table pitched to the side and threatened to topple into the gaping crevice below, and as the incredible Super Sue Luck of the twenty-eight demigods sitting at the table saved them.

"Ebony," I said, "I need your help!"

"Y?" she demanded, turning to face me. Her hand was poised to stick up the finger at me.

"I want to get my hands on some cool weapons and stuff. Do you know where I can get any?"

"Try Hot Topic," she said. My mouth dropped open. That had been a whole five syllable sentence. _Five syllables. _Yet _every single word_ had been spelled correctly. She had done Hot Topic the courtesy of spelling its name right.

Hot Topic was obviously a very special place.

"Ebony," I hissed, "Have you ever met any mystical Zen guys who give you self inspiring and corny speeches? And then they give you an incredible weapon?"

"Y shuld I tel u?" she demanded.

"Bcos- Argh!" I shook my head, trying to restore the brain cells which Ebony had cost me. "Because I really need a cool weapon! It's like... you without Hot Topic! Edward without sparkles! Nico without me!"

I thought I had made a pretty good point, but Ebony just glared at me.

"No." she snapped. "U alreddy got too b claimd. da restt off us r stuk herere wile u get 2 haf fun! Its not fiar!"

I was about to give her a snappy retort, but my incredible brain told me that another one of Ebony's sentences could lower my brain cell levels from 'freakishly smart supergenius' to 'freakishly smart genius.' I made a noise of horror, and quickly manoeuvred back to the Poseidon table. Percy was sitting there (glaring at me). I ignored him, and instead started staring at Nico. Not in a creepy stalker way, but in a thoughtful, admiring way. He was just so... wonderful. I could just see us, three months from now... he would have fallen for my Mary Sue charms. He would be the only one who understood my need for cool stuff, and so the white pony would be conjured from the ground and we would gallop off together in search of cheesy Zen men. I smiled. It was a beautiful dream. And it was one that _had_ to come true. Nico couldn't see me from here! I flipped my hair repeatedly, until it looked like I had some form of cancer/epilepsy. He still didn't look up from his plate. I scowled.

"Attention!" Mr D suddenly called through the crowd. "A few of you brats have complained to me about the latest addition to the Poseidon cabin. And to answer all of your questions, I would just like to point out that... I. Don't. Care. That's all."

He sat down, and I watched as each of the cabins formed lines to the coal brazier in the middle of the pavilion. I felt mildly interested as each demigod made offerings to their parents. Then, a random Athena girl walked up to me.

"Hi!" she said. She didn't look like she wanted to say hi. She looked like she wanted to hurt me, and crush my dreams of Nico and the white pony. "We just thought of a speech you might like to give! We wrote it down for you!"

Oh. That was... nice. The girl gave me a huge smile, and dropped a piece of paper in my lap. I frowned, unfolded it, and began to read aloud.

"_I pledge myself to the Goddess Artemis_- what?"

Percy (who hadn't said a word to me) gave the Athena girl an amused grin. She kept that stupid, preppy smile plastered on her face.

"Go on! Read the rest! Have fun!" she said cheerfully. Then she skipped away to join the Athena line. I noticed Annabeth leading the line, and gave her a nasty look. Then I realised that Nico was about to stand up, and quickly tuned in my Sue Senses, ignoring the note in my lap. It was probably just some pathetic scheme to get rid of me.

I was just examining Nico's eyes, and was wondering if perhaps Hades had the same eyes, when a loud voice cut across the babble of the pavilion.

"Deer Haydees," Ebony was saying. "Thx 4 helpin wif gettin rid of dose stoopid prepz. U rok!"

Somewhere, deep within the underworld, Hades was sobbing. The next person from the Mary Sue table stepped forward, threw some meat into the brazier, and said, "I would like to thank my mother, Artemis, for helping me get over my father's death when I accidently killed him with my incredible powers at the age of three and I was traumatised and crushed and no one showed me any sympathy and I had to grow up on the street fighting monsters and that's how I gained so much experience with fighting and that's why I'm so powerful and as the ONE AND ONLY daughter of Artemis I would like to thank you for all you have done."

Almost everyone groaned, but I was smarter than them. I was already ducking underneath the table, using it as a shield. Percy frowned at me.

"What-" he began, but he never got a chance to finish his sentence.

"TO MY MOTHER ARTEMIS, I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME GET OVER THE LITTLE _LIARS_ WHO PRETEND TO BE YOUR DAUGHTERs WHEN I AM REALLY YOUR ONE AND ONLY DAUGHTER!"

It was another one and only daughter of Artemis, who had spoken as loudly as she possibly could. The girl in front of her snapped,

"Oh, and Artemis? Could you please incinerate this moronic little NOT a Mary Sue?"

Everyone in the Mary Sue line gasped.

"Oh no you didn't!" Ken said.

"Seriously? All these years and Barbie STILL believes you're straight?" I didn't bother figuring who said that. I could sense a Super Sue battle fast approaching.

Sure enough, a beam of moonlight went slamming into first one and only daughter of Artemis. She was sent flying into the Aphrodite table.

"EEWW!" the Aphrodite kids screamed, running in all directions. I frowned. It was just _moonlight_. Why in Hades would that do any damage? The daughter of Artemis staggered to her feet, drew a bow from nowhere, and threw it at her sister/mortal enemy.

As the battle progressed and I decided to cut dinner short and retreat to my cabin, the immortal words of Lord Voldemort rang in my head.

'_This is a Mary Sue story. It doesn't have to make sense.'_

He had a real point there.

**Oh, and just to let everyone know, my friend drew a picture for the Tale of Marie Susanne on deviantart. Look it up! And I'm really look forward to reading your competition entries! **


	9. Chapter 9

**The Mary Sue comp is still running. I LOVE the entries so far, they're fantastic. Keep them coming!**

The next week was the most repetitive of my life. I came top of every class, outshone everyone, and set thirty-six new records. I turned out to be even better than Percy when it came to sword fighting. I won Capture the Flag twice. I was the star of the camp, and yet everyone still treated me as though I was some grotesque combination of Miley Cyrus, Bella Swan and Sarah Palin.

The only real highlight was when I went to Ancient Greek lessons. Annabeth was the instructor, and Nico was (conveniently) in my class. Every day, I would watch him intently, noticing how every time he caught me staring at him, he would slide away from me as un-subtly as he could. I noted the way that he used his hands when he talked, and how his hair fell into his eyes when the wind blew too hard. I watched him for a week, until finally, my chance came. I had only been learning Greek for a few days, and even though I had no dyslexia and all logic said that I should still be learning how to write an omega, I was completely fluent. I was even better than Annabeth. Anyway, I was sitting on a bench in the Arts and Crafts building, letting Annabeth know about her two minor grammar mistakes, when she must have suddenly felt a gush of sympathy for my Nico-less state.

"I have an idea," she snapped. "Why don't you go help someone else? Preferably on the other side of the room?"

I saw the hint immediately. Nico was on the other side of the room! She wanted me to help Nico!

Happy violins played in the background as I skipped over to Nico's side. He looked up, alarmed, as I slid into place next to him.

"Annabeth asked me to help you!" I said cheerfully, but I added a seductive note to my tone of voice. Nico gave Annabeth a furious glare from across the room. He was obviously still in denial about his feelings for me.

"So," I said. I took one quick look at his Greek writing. My incredible brain told me that it was worth a B+. I flinched. Poor, innocent Nico. How could he stand to even look at his report cards, with imperfect marks like these?

Nico didn't say a word as I pointed out all of his mistakes. After half an hour of me talking, Annabeth glaring at me until I _stopped _talking, and still not a word from Nico, I decided that it was time to kick it up a notch.

"So," I said flirtatiously. I could sense Annabeth behind me, glaring furiously at the back of my head. "Do you want to know how to congregate the verb- 'to love'?"

Annabeth didn't let me come back to Greek Speak after that.

My days continued, but now they were tinted with depressing and cheesy thoughts. I had no Nico. Everyone hated me. I was obviously reaching the stage of my Mary Sue life when I would start to see my intelligence, beauty and athleticism as a curse.

It was only when I was taking a walk on the beach that I became desperate. I had just let out a huge (and pretty impressive) sigh, which was loud enough to wake the dead. I had fallen into a deep, depressing depression. The words sounded a little off in my head, but this wasn't the time to worry about sentence structure. I was depressed. As depressed as a Mary Sue could be. I had spiralled down into a deep pit of misery, and nothing was going to get me out.

I sighed again as I came to a stop at the water's edge, watching the tide slowly creep towards me. I shouldn't have been able to see any reflections in the churning seawater, but I wasn't in the mood for logic. There was my reflection, as clear as day, right in front of me. I tried to force a smile, but suddenly, my face fell in horror. There, in the unrealistically clear reflection, was... something wrong.

_My eyes were red._

No. NO. This was impossible. Red eyes are something which the Fates inflict upon mere mortals. Not Mary Sues! There must have been a mistake. I ran the data my eyes were giving me through my brain, again and again.

No.

I was so depressed that I was starting to gain flaws that belonged to... normal people. Red eyes today, what next? Perhaps a split end? A broken nail?

I took a deep breath and held back my scream of terror. I needed help. Soon. Otherwise I would turn into some imperfect excuse for a human being!

I stood on the beach, frozen, until finally the answer came to me.

Of course. _Nico._

He was the reason for my depression in the first place! I was destined to be with him, and he hated me. I needed to talk to him more, and I would become the great Mary Sue I was surely destined to be!

Of course, Nico wouldn't want to talk to me. He would run away as fast as he could. And I needed to get my Sue-ness back as soon as possible. This was going to require some stealthy surveillance. Not stalking. Perfectly innocent stealthy surveillance.

I slid in through the door of the Hades cabin, a huge grin plastered across my face. His cabin was so _cool_. It was all dark and gloomy and gothic... Ebony would have loved it. There was a creepy chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and the beds all looked as though they had come right out of a (non sparkly) vampire movie. I wanted to squeal in delight. I was in Nico's cabin, looking at his stuff! Hurriedly, I tracked down his bed and sat on it with relish. This was better than showing up Percy at sword fighting. I sprayed some of my perfume on his bed, so that he could have dreams about me, and moved onto the bathroom.

It smelled like Nico's cologne (even though he was technically like, twelve and shouldn't even need to shave yet). I sighed blissfully, and went to inspect his toothbrush.

After I had written down Nico's choice of toothpaste and shampoo, stolen his timetable, taken a strand of his hair and a photograph of every item of clothing he owned, I decided that it was time to leave. Nico's cabin was a wonderful place, but he would be coming back soon, and I wouldn't want him to get the wrong impression of me. I hastily bugged his room and placed a tracker in all of his shoes before I crept out of the door, making sure no-one could see me.

I was pleased with my stealthy surveillance mission. I hurried back to my cabin where I checked my reflection, and I was back to my flawless self, smiling brightly at the mirror.

I put Nico's hair in a glass case and stuck a copy of his DNA on the wall. I placed his schedule in my draw, so that I would know where he was at all times. Percy would probably wonder why I had a hair on display on my bedside table and a DNA poster on my wall, but he wouldn't be smart enough to comprehend my burning passion for Nico.

I smiled blissfully again. I was supposed to be at archery with all of the Apollo kids, but they weren't enough of a challenge. Instead, I decided to take a walk in the dark, menacing woods, which nothing good could come from.

I was right. I had only been walking in the woods for ten minutes when a burst of light erupted in front of me. A normal person would have been blinded, but I was _not_ normal. Anyway, I caught a glimpse of a beautiful woman in casual but stylish clothing, glaring at me as though I was a mound of dog poo on her carpet. Before I got a chance to open my mouth, she vanished again, leaving behind a scrap of paper on the ground. I frowned, and bent to pick it up. It appeared to be some kind of dictionary definition.

_Stalk:_

_To obsessively follow a person(s) without their consent, usually with dishonest intention. See also: Stalker._

I rolled my eyes. Athena didn't know anything.


	10. Chapter 10

**Thank you for all of your entries! The winner will be announced in the next chapter. Sorry I've been taking so long with these chapters, I have school and other boring stuff like that. Oh, and just a reminder to you all: 80% of the stuff in this story was stolen from various authors around the world. I would like to give a big thank you to Tara Gillesbie for bringing us the wonderful classic, **_**My Immortal**_**, and everyone's favourite goff, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. (Other spellings include Enoby, Ebory, Enony, Evony, Ibony, Enobby, Egogy, TaEbory, Tata and Tara.) Finally, I would like to wish one of my friends a big happy birthday and I hope that she got lots of money! **

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE PLOT:

"Plot? What _plot?_" Annabeth snapped.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE SAD EXCUSE FOR A PIECE OF LITERTURE:

_Number of times Nico has made eye contact with me in the past two months: thirty-eight._

_Number of times I have been forced to throw things at the back of Nico's head to make him make eye contact with me: thirty-eight._

_Number of times I have had my schedule rearranged in order to share a class with Nico: ninety._

_Number of times Nico has had his schedule rearranged in order to not share a class with me: eighty nine._

_Number of times I tried making Nico feel sorry for me: fifty_

_Number of times I tried to make Nico feel jealous: fifty-four_

_Number of times I tried to play hard to get with Nico: one-hundred and nine._

_Number of times I tried flirting with Nico: forty six._

_Number of times I have tried to impress Nico: 1, 3569._

_Number of times my romantic advances didn't work: 13828_

I sighed dejectedly as I looked over my list. My life sucked. I was beautiful, intelligent and athletic, but my life sucked. I rolled over in my bed to stare at Nico's hair in the glass case, my notebook falling uselessly onto the pillow. My life was over. I may as well be trying to hit on a rock. Nico hated me. It had taken my nine chapters to realise this, but I knew it was true. He hated me.

I continued to mope around in my black hole of misery, occasionally changing positions on my bed. I was starting to relate to some other angsty, overdramatic teen... what was her name? Mella Swan? Kella Swan? Gella Swan? Whatever. It didn't matter. I continued to stare straight ahead, lost in my depressing thoughts. My sad excuse for a plotline had died. It had been two months and ten days, and no quests had turned up. No prophecies had come. Nothing remotely interesting had happened. It was obvious that somewhere, up in the sky, my plot had been abandoned. That's what I was. A discontinued Mary Sue.

I shuddered and rolled over in bed again. Nothing mattered any more. Except for my hair. And my nails. And my fighting skills. And my power. And my complexion. But nothing else, apart from that. Nothing.

Except Nico. And my weight was pretty important as well.

After making a mental list of what did still matter in life, I gave an agonizing groan. Nothing, except for those three hundred and thirty two things, mattered. At all.

For those who don't know, irony often plays a part in Mary Sue stories. Just when the glorious main character thinks that all is lost, that she will have to live her life serving her sworn enemy while her true love is tortured right in front of her, someone will coincidentally and very conveniently come to save the day. I knew this, of course, but I was too busy wallowing in sorrow to realise what was just around the corner.

The sounds of shouting alerted my Sue Senses, and I sat up in bed. There was definitely shouting going on, and running feet, as campers ran past my cabin.

"The Hunters are here!" someone cried.

"It's Thalia!" another shouted.

I frowned. Who on earth was Thalia? I knew who the Hunters were, of course. But _Thalia?_ Was she some long lost demigod who went missing on a Quest ten years ago?

Curiosity overwhelmed me. The Hunters would be interesting to meet (I could really help them improve their archery), and Thalia was obviously popular at Camp Half Blood. I dragged myself out of bed, checked my hair (which was still perfect, despite the fact that I had been moping in bed all day long), and headed for the door.

Outside, there was a steady flow of campers heading up to the Big House. A couple of Ares kids scowled at me, and I gave them the finger. I joined the line of kids hurrying towards the Big House, curiosity lighting my eyes. Would the Hunters be willing to accept a Mary Sue? If they were, then that might make Nico all jealous! Perhaps my plotline wasn't dead after all. I smiled, and continued up the hill.

The Big House stood in front of me, its front doors open wide, but the crowd which had formed was standing outside on the lawn. People were jostling forward, and it was only thanks to my Sue Skills that I managed to fight my way to the centre. My jaw would have dropped, but that kind of thing was for lesser mortals.

There was a group of girls there, about twenty of them, all wearing silver jackets and a quiver of arrows. I instantly recognised them as the Hunters. At their centre was a very serious looking girl, talking to Chiron. This was obviously Artemis, the mother of about fifty Mary Sues. I paused for a moment to wonder why, in Zeus' name, a human would have a kid with someone who looked like a ten year old girl, then dismissed it. Logic was practically non-existent in my world, anyway. I abandoned my brief stab at trying to weave some common sense into the plotline, and began searching for Thalia.

It took me three seconds to find her. Black spiky hair, a pale face and...

I froze. No way. Not possible. _I _was the representation of Big Three girl power! There was no way!

I desperately stared at her electric blue eyes. Children of Aphrodite had blue eyes! Perhaps the computer that was my brain was wrong! Perhaps she was a daughter of Aphrodite!

I examined her punk hairstyle. If she was a daughter of Aphrodite, then why had she joined the eternal lesbians club?

There was no getting around it. Thalia was a daughter of Zeus. I gnashed my teeth together. Nico was _talking_ to her! Nico was very specifically _not_ allowed to talk to anyone but me!

Furious, I crept over to where Nico, Thalia, Percy and Annabeth were chatting, trying to eavesdrop on their conversation (but in a good, honest way). Unfortunately just as I was about to unleash my Super Sue hearing upon the world, I felt a sudden wrenching feeling in my gut. I involuntarily stepped closer to Artemis and Chiron, their conversation echoing loud and clear into my ears.

"...I sense a disturbance in the Sueniverse" Artemis muttered. "Like a plotline suddenly twisting around completely... and the entire concept of logic being screwed up into a little ball and hurled off a cliff."

"Oh no," Chiron said, panic leaking into his tone. "That can only mean..."

"That a Mary Sue writer is trying to incorporate a twist into her story." Artemis said grimly. Chiron's eyes widened in horror. I understood why. When Mary Sue writers try to fit a twist into the story, it usually ends with a monster turning up for absolutely no reason and killing everyone.

"Wait..." Chiron said slowly, "What you said before... basically you're telling me that even though you have sixty five children, you are still a virgin?"

"That's right," Artemis snapped. "But we have more important issues. What do we do about this twist?"

"All we can do is wait," Chiron said heavily. "Hopefully, it's just some quest that a Mary Sue will be going on."

I finally regained control of my legs and walked purposefully back towards Nico and Thalia. I didn't care about plot twists and approaching doom. Nico was still talking with some daughter of Zeus! _Thalia_ (what an ugly name) was talking in a low voice to Nico, Annabeth and Percy, as though she was sharing some deep, dark secret. I casually strode past them and knelt down to tie my shoe, even though I was wearing completely lace-less boots.

"It's true!" Thalia was snapping. "Clio is the Muse of history! She knows these things!"

"But... it's just not possible!" Annabeth said with an undertone of anger.

"Thalia, it does seem a bit..." Percy trailed off.

"How would you know?" she demanded. "Look, Clio told me very specifically, _there is such thing_. Ugly Mary Sues do exist!"

My jaw dropped. I was frozen in the act of tying my invisible shoelace. Did she just say what I thought she said? I felt dazed, disorientated. There _was _an imbalance in the Sueniverse. A plotline was slowly falling into place around me, and only one more piece of the puzzle was needed for me to understand it. I gave up all pretence and started staring intently at Thalia, waiting for her to open her mouth.

"_Four shall get to leave this camp,"_

Rachel's annoying voice echoed through the crowd, and instantly, everyone fell silent. Her voice sounded... strange, though, as though three Rachels were talking. I frowned.

"_The random new character, the main character, the other guy, and the goff who is a vamp." _

It was the worst excuse for a prophecy I had ever heard.

"_They shall search for the Ugly Mary Sue,_

_They shall travel by boat in the ocean blue. _

_One will die a dramatic death,_

_One will successfully send everyone deaf,_

_The other two don't matter much right now,_

_So now I will go and ride a cow."_

Almost everyone made groaning noises. I stared in the general direction of Rachel with disbelief etched all over my face. _Ride a cow?_ Really? This prophecy was like every single Mary Sue prophecy rolled into one. It literally hurt my ears.

Wait a second.

_Wait a second_.

_They shall search for the Ugly Mary Sue._

If an Ugly Mary Sue really _did _exist... then I could use her to convince everyone that Mary Sues were just like canon characters! (Only better.)And then Nico would fall unconditionally, irrevocably, completely, absolutely, totally, utterly, impenetrably, disreputably in love with me!

It was the perfect plan! I was standing proudly in the middle of the crowd, having seen the light. I would go on a quest! I would make Nico love me! And...

I would have to share the glory.

Ew. I wrinkled my nose. Who were these three other people who would come with me?

_The random new character and the other guy. _Rachel's power over the English language was almost as impressive as Ebony's.

They better not be more perfect than me. I didn't bother thinking about those two, instead skipping onto other, more obvious options.

_The main character _was obviously me, considering the fact that the interesting stuff only seemed to be happening to me. And finally...

_The goff who is a vamp._ I decided right there and then, that if any of the people reading my tale couldn't figure out who that was, I would send a Sue army after them. I glanced around at the boring people who were staring at me (probably because I was standing, absolutely frozen, in the middle of a crowd) and then hurried off. I had some research to do.


	11. Chapter 11

**Right, this chapter is more of a 'let's try and construct a plot!' thing, so sorry if there are less lulz. Now for the Mary Sue competition winners (we decided to put the runner up into the story as well). In first place was Amanda Eros with the wonderful Gary Stu, Amandor! I loved the extensive family history (so very Gary Stu), and my friends and I wasted a maths lesson laughing at him. I plan to have plenty of nuns throw themselves at him during the story. The runner-up wasn't able to leave a username, but she was the creator of ViraTrixten! Her family tree... is just beautiful ****. And I'm also really looking forward to the way Ebony will react to her. Congratulations to these two lucky winners! It was really hard to pick, by the way. Now, enjoy the chapter! And again, sorry if there are less lulz, I'll make it up to you all in the next chapter. **

I hurried along the darkened path as, behind me, the sun sunk below the horizon. I hoped to make it back to camp quickly so that Nico wouldn't start worrying about me. It hadn't been easy, sneaking into the Mary Sue cabin. But I had all of the stealth in the world, so I had been able to climb in through a window and slip into the library. It had taken me three minutes and 40.8792 seconds for me to find what I was looking for in the Mary Sue library. Hopefully, no-one would miss it.

I continued down the path with a triumphant smile on my face and a book clenched in my hand. This book should tell me everything about my quest. It was small, and was coated in a thick layer of dust. I had always liked books with thick layers of dust. They usually had some life-changing bit of information inside.

It took me another ten minutes to get back to camp. Using the shadows as my cover, I slipped between the trees (the nymphs tried to slap me) and walked swiftly into the Poseidon cabin. I grinned. I was starting to feel like James Bond's younger, smarter, stronger, funnier, better-looking sister. The door clicked shut behind me, and I immediately sat down on my bed, getting my first good look at the book which I had stolen from the Mary Sue library.

It was bound with black leather, and embossed on the cover in gold letters was the title _The Mary Sue Encyclopaedia._ I gave another satisfied smile and settled down in my bed to read.

There was a lot to sift through. Gothic Mary Sues, Pity-Beggar Mary Sues, God-moding Mary Sues... I was surprised at how many varieties there were. I flicked through the yellowing pages, until finally I reached... _The Ugly Mary Sue._

_The Ugly Mary Sue is the rarest kind of Mary Sue there is. This Sue is almost impossible to find, and it takes many years of hunting through the deep, dark, poorly spelled depths of Sue stories to track any down. These Sues usually have a kind, honest heart, and are always incredibly nice. They are generally outcasts, like the tragic Mary Sues, but sometimes have a small group of close friends. These Mary Sues are usually quite ordinary, but will often be intelligent and shy. They are very gentle creatures. _

_Many readers may wonder how it is possible to find an ugly Mary Sue, especially when Mary Sues are, by definition, perfect in every way. The ugly Mary Sue will often be a part of one of those sickening love stories for which Sues are so famous, but the love story may have a bit more depth and originality than others. Usually, Ugly Mary Sues make a canon character fall in love with them for 'who they are', a line which would make Strawberry Shortcake throw up. Ugly Mary Sues are always very vulnerable, and often play the damsel in distress. They are almost always saved by their love interest in frightening situations, and then the love interest will declare his undying, sickening love for her._

_In short, if you want to imagine an ugly Mary Sue, think of an ugly Bella Swan. (See: Bella Swan-the sparkly Mary Sue). _

I frowned. I had been given no clues as to where to find an ugly Mary Sue. Gentle, kind... I could just imagine how well she would get along with Ebony. This quest was going to be harder than I had originally thought. If there was an ugly Mary Sue somewhere, then surely she would have already turned up at Camp Half Blood? Perhaps she already _was_ here, but no-one had realised that she was a Mary Sue? Was her ugliness protecting her?

Voldemort's high, cold voice echoed in my mind.

"_This is a Mary Sue story. It doesn't have to make sense." _

He had been right. Nothing in my plotline had seemed to make any sense at all. The Ugly Mary Sue could be anywhere at any time. I sighed. There was only one thing left to do.

Sneak away from camp in the middle of the night to go on a quest. _That's _what I needed to do. I knew that Nico would never let me go, if he could help it. I should save him the pain. I gave another huge sigh, and started packing my things. It was going to be a long night.

Ten minutes later, I was once again trudging up the hill to the Mary Sue cabin. I had decided to pack light for my quest; twenty skirts, fifty pairs of shoes, eighty-nine tops, thirty pairs of shorts, ninety jackets, an entire box filled with make-up, Nico's hair in a glass case, my tracker for Nico (so that I could stare obsessively over where he was and what he was doing), the poster of Nico's DNA and one of his toenails, my notebook, my pillow, a sleeping bag, a tent, two-hundred books and a toothbrush. I had been forced to leave more than half of my stuff behind. I sighed. Perhaps I could give it to Nico so that he could remember all of the good times we've had.

I walked over the bridge and clambered up the ladder, somehow bringing my suitcase with me. I gave the door three loud knocks.

There was a second's silence, in which I rocked back and forth on my heels and wondered if a jealous Mary Sue would try to kill me. Then, the door swung open with an ominous creak.

"OMG WTF r u doin here?" Ebony's voice instantly relaxed me. She was standing in the doorway, wearing a long black dress and a thick coat of gunk on her face.

"Hi, Ebony! I have something to tell you!"

"Wat?" she asked. I smiled. It was so good to hear the sound of Ebony offending the English language every time she opened her mouth.

"Can I come in?" I asked. Ebony nodded, but didn't move over to let me in. I shrugged, and squeezed past her and into the Mary Sue cabin. I smiled fondly as I looked over the expensive chairs, the pictures of unicorns on the walls...

"OK Wjat r u goin 2 twll meh?" Ebony asked, closing the door. I looked around. None of my fellow Sues seemed to be here.

"There was a prophecy, Ebony" I said. "It said that both of us were going to get to go on a quest, along with another couple of random people. We're going to go and search for the Ugly Mary Sue."

"Da wat?" Ebony asked, confusion in her icy blue eyes.

"The Ugly Mary Sue," I said evenly. "If we can find her, then we can prove to Chiron and Mr D that Mary Sues aren't so bad! They might let us stay down with the rest of the camp!"

"Y am i cumin tho?" Ebony asked.

"You're back by popular demand," I explained patiently. "The other two... I don't know. They could be anyone."

"So...(I rolled my eyes at Ebony's multiple dot-dot-dots)... I get 2 leaf camp?1111111111111?"

"Yes," I said. "And we can search for the ugly Mary Sue, and Nico will love me, and-"

"Cjan we Go 2 mi old skull, den? Its called Hogwats, and-"

"I know about Hogwarts," I snapped, "and no! That's an entirely different plotline!"

"Ur a prep!" she snapped. I snorted.

"Go pack your things, Ebony. We're leaving. Where's the rest of the cabin, anyway?"

"At da cole mins. »

"Well, why aren't you there?"

"I needed to put on my blood-red black dress and my red fishnets and my black poiny boots and my black eyesharrow and my black lipstik and my wite foundation and-"

"That's great. Go pack, and I'll go find another couple of people to come with us on our quest, okay? See you in a couple of minutes!"

"Ok!" she replied, already running off to her room. I turned, and sped towards the coal mines.

It took me two minutes to reach them. I hurried forward, thankful for my night vision. I ignored the Sues who glared at me as I ran past and brandished pickaxes. I was searching frantically for some high up place, preferably with good lighting. I had managed to find a very convenient pile of boxes, perfect for making an inspirational speech. I clambered up them with the stealth of a monkey, and looked down upon my fellow Sues, breaking nails and getting smudges of dirt on their skin. My heart ached. I needed to make this horror stop.

"ATTENTION, EVERYONE!" I yelled. My voice was incredibly loud; I didn't even need a microphone. Pickaxes stopped swinging as hundreds of perfect faces turned to look up at me.

"LISTEN!" I hollered. "I know that you're all jealous of me since I, unlike the rest of you, got to move to the Poseidon cabin, but you need to put your pathetic and childish issues aside!"

I got a lot of stony looks from the perfectly made-up faces.

"We are Mary Sues and Gary Stues! We are better than everyone! We deserve to be worshipped! But instead, we're stuck in stupid coal mines when we could be out completing quests and meeting our soul mates!"

A lot of people muttered amongst themselves. I could feel my already-bloated confidence growing.

"Ebony, I and two others are going to save the Sues! We are going on a perilous quest to find... _the Ugly Mary Sue!_"

There was a collective gasp throughout the entire room. The muttering started up again, this time much louder.

"We need two more Mary Sues to help us!" I continued. "We are leaving tonight to find the Ugly Sue! If you think you are ready for the job, please step forward!"

Almost the entire population of the Mary Sue cabin stepped forward. I smiled in satisfaction. My plan was working! My eyes scanned the crowd, searching...

Yes! Exactly five Mary Sues and Gary Stues had not stepped forward. Why was I picking the ones who didn't volunteer? Because it was far more easy.

"You!" I shouted across the room, pointing to a blonde boy with violet coloured eyes and alabaster skin. "We need to add a bigger gender mix to the plotline! You're coming on the quest!"

The boy stared up at me furiously.

"I need to stay here!" he shouted. "I have a record to set! I need to make every girl in camp fall in love with me!"

"I don't care!" I shouted back. "Meet me outside!"

There was even more muttering now. A couple of Sues tried to take a step back, but I ignored them. I looked at the four remaining Sues who hadn't volunteered. They were all so... Sue-ish. This would be hard to pick.

"Right!" I yelled, remembering what Edward had done on my first day at Camp Half-Blood. "You four! Does any of you have a name which is over twenty syllables long?"

There was a second of silence. Then, one of the girls, glaring at me furiously, raised her hand.

"Excellent!" I cried, not bothering to ask what her name was. She had auburn hair which fell in ringlets to her shoulders, and intimidating grey eyes. She gave me a cold death stare as I moved on to the rest of my epic speech.

"I'll see both of you outside! You're on the team!"

A huge roar echoed through the mines as the Sues cheered, and I smiled appreciatively. The two lucky winners both slipped out of sight. I cut through the crowd as I followed them, hoping that neither of the two would try to escape.

I ran back to the mine entrance, where my two new friends were glaring daggers at me.

"I don't want to go!" the girl snapped. "Do you _realise _what could happen to my nails? And my hair? You can't make me go!"

"Ebony's your cabin leader," I said smugly. "She can _make_ you go."

There was a pause, in which the girl scowled at me and the Gary Stu winked at me. I rolled my eyes. I was obviously destined for Nico. Why was he even bothering?

"So," I said. "What're your names?"

"I'm Amandor Heliodoro Emygio de Apolinar Dioniso," the Gary Stu piped up immediately. "I'm the son of Apollo, the grandson of Aphrodite, and the great-great grandson of Dionysus."

"That's great," I said indifferently, just to let him know I wasn't interested. "What about you?" I asked the Mary Sue in front of me. She scowled again.

"I'm ViraTrixten-Riley-Annestasia-Lee-Violetswan-Anderlan-Mica-Luarry-Ray-tea." she said. "I'm the daughter of Apollo, the granddaughter of Athena and Zeus, the great-granddaughter of Hades, the great-great granddaughter of Hestia, the great-great-great granddaughter of Atlas and the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Kronos and a nymph."

There was a second of silence.

"That family tree made no sense to me," I said. "You deserve a Nobel Prize."

"I know," ViraTrixten said smugly.

"Well, now that two completely random characters have been abruptly thrown into the plot for no apparent reason, do you want to head off on this quest?" Amandor asked. I nodded.

"Head back to the Sue cabin and pack," I ordered them. "We're leaving at midnight."


	12. Chapter 12

**I feel so bad for what I've done to poor Tim in this chapter. Sorry if this is a bit on the short side, I've had a lot of study. Hope you like it!**

It had only taken Amandor and ViraTrixten half an hour to pack. Unfortunately, Ebony was another story.

"NO!1" she shrieked at me with tears of blood running down her face. I had been trying in vain to assure her that five hundred bottles of white foundation was quite enough. Behind her was a pile of suitcases, all bursting with black miniskirts, ripped dresses and other goffik attire.

"Look, Ebony," I said impatiently, "we have more important things to worry about! We can stop by Hot Topic later, I promise! Just _hurry up!_"

Ebony's tears of blood instantly disappeared, and she smiled.

"We cna stoop bi Hot Topic?" she asked. I nodded. Ebony gave a huge grin, and forgot all about the foundation. ViraTrixten grimaced at me. It was clear that going to Hot Topic with Ebony was right up there on her list. Just next to falling into a pile of cow manure.

I sighed as Ebony pulled out a wand for no apparent reason and swished it through the air like a blind axe-murderer. She really was going to be an interesting addition to the quest. I ignored her, and gave Amandor and ViraTrixten a significant nod. We snuck out of the cabin, Ebony and her suitcases in tow, and headed towards the beach.

I had convinced Amandor, ViraTrixten and Ebony that it would be wiser to travel by sea, and that we should ask my dad for a boat.

After four hours of standing in the shallows of the ocean and yelling prayers at Poseidon, I decided that it would be wiser to ask my _other_ dad for a boat.

"Remind me again why we can't just catch a plane?" ViraTrixten hissed as we crept towards the house. We were both wearing camouflage army fatigues, and I had brown and green paint smeared across my face. ViraTrixten had refused point-blank to put anything brown or green on her face. There were night vision goggles strapped to our heads, and each of us was holding a sleek, black and completely illegal firearm.

"Sssh!" I snapped. "You have no idea what he's like! If he catches us, he'll do all he can to kill us!"

She scowled but remained quiet. We treaded forward softly, until we had reached the back window of the house.

"Amandor!" I whispered. "Do you read me?"

"Yup," his voice echoed through the tiny earpiece I was wearing. I glanced at my watch. It was almost five in the morning. We had thirty seconds until we would strike.

"Is it clear?" I asked.

"The subject is asleep in his bed," Amandor said. "It's safe to go in."

"Ebony?" I asked.

"Wat?" an irritated voice snapped. I sighed.

"Are there any people around the house?" I asked patiently. "Any cars?"

"ummm no."

"It's all clear," I muttered to ViraTrixten. She nodded, straightened up, and immediately set to picking the lock on the window.

"Remember," I muttered, "he's a maniac. If he catches us, don't hesitate." I gestured to the gun I was holding, and ViraTrixten nodded.

"Are you _sure _you want to break into your stepfather's house?" she asked. "I mean, he has been caring for you and supporting you for most of your life-"

"Tim is a monster!" I cut across her. "He is _evil_. He deserves this. We're just going to go in, grab the car keys and his credit card, and then we steal his car and go."

"Okay," she muttered. The lock gave a small _click _and the window swung open.

"Right," I said. Amandor, Ebony, we're going in."

"Got it," Amandor said. "He's still sound asleep. Good luck!"

I gripped my gun and slipped through the window like a ghost, landing lightly on my feet. I felt ViraTrixten land beside me. We were standing in the kitchen where I had been abused and neglected... my eyes rested on the straight-A report card which had been stuck to the fridge, and tears came to my eyes.

"Okay," I breathed. "The car keys are usually on the kitchen bench. Go and have a look. I'll get the credit card."

ViraTrixten nodded, and crept over to the kitchen benches. I headed for the stairs, ignoring the pounding of my heart. I came to a stop outside of Tim's bedroom.

"Amandor?" I whispered.

"It's safe," he said.

I rested my hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. The door swung inward, and I had to repress a shudder.

Tim was lying in his bed, his face stretched back into a ghastly smile. I saw his hands twitch as he slept, and I felt a wave of hatred. No doubt he was dreaming about strangling me. Turning my eyes away, I softly treaded towards his cupboard, where he usually kept his wallet and his credit card. I passed the window, and caught a glimpse of Amandor, perched in the tree which was right outside of Tim's bedroom window. He grinned and gave me a thumbs up.

I opened the cupboard, wincing as it gave a small creak. Tim snorted in his sleep.

I immediately spotted his wallet and grinned in triumph. My hands closed around it. I quickly flipped through it and smiled in satisfaction when I saw the credit card in all its glory.

"I've got the keys," ViraTrixten's voice hissed into my earpiece. "I'm in his car right now. Hang on-"

I never heard the rest of her sentence. A horribly loud growling noise had ripped through the silence of the night, and I felt a haze of panic wash over me.

_ViraTrixten had started the engine. _

Tim's car had come to life; the noise of its engine was enough to wake the dead and its bright headlights were somehow shining directly into the bedroom window. Tim jerked in his sleep and woke with a start.

"Marie?" he asked blearily when his half-closed eyes rested upon me. Then they snapped wide open in shock.

"Marie!" he cried, scrambling out of bed. I took a step back.

"I missed you so much!" he said joyfully. He was walking towards me...

"Don't touch me," I snapped. I swung my gun up so that it was aimed directly between his eyes, and he seemed to falter for a second.

"Marie, what are you-" he began, but he was cut off by an ear-splitting _crash_. I was thrown sideways as the wall itself seemed to buckle. Bits of debris flew through the air while I tried desperately to clear my head. What was going on? Suddenly, there was another crash, even louder than the first. It was almost as though someone was repeatedly ramming a car into the side of the house.

Wait a second.

"Marie, get in!" I heard someone snap. I opened my eyes, and immediately regretted it. The entire side wall of Tim's house had come off. I was lying two inches away from a frightening drop. I peered over the edge of what had once been the second storey of Tim's house, where ViraTrixten, Amandor and Ebony were all sitting in a black convertible. I glanced at my hand, which still held Tim's wallet. Smiling, I leapt from the second storey into Tim's car, landing precisely in the only free seat. I calmly fastened my seat belt.

"Where do we go?" ViraTrixten asked. She was gripping the steering wheel and she had a huge, maniacal grin on her face. I got the distinct impression that she was dying to ram another wall with a car.

"Away from here," I said. "We can get a hotel somewhere. And then we can go and buy ourselves a boat."

ViraTrixten immediately flattened her foot against the ground, and the car screeched forward. I twisted in my seat, hoping to get one last glimpse of Tim's house.

The side wall had caved in, and the garden which Tim had always loved was ruined. As I watched, the entire second storey creaked and fell to the ground, sending even more debris into the air.

"Which hotel?" Amandor asked.

"I don't care. Just make sure it's expensive," I said evenly. I needed to spend every last dollar Tim owned before he got a chance to cancel his bank account.


	13. Chapter 13

**Just so everyone knows, this is the third time I've re-typed my authors note because I have nothing to say. Thanks for the reviews! **

Everyone knows that Mary Sues are indestructible. We can fall off of ten-storey buildings and survive. We can have our arm bitten off by a crocodile, but we can go for a week without getting to a hospital afterwards. There are precious few things in the world which can destroy a Mary Sue; broken nails, messed-up hair, and a lack of expensive clothes and cosmetics. And it was then, in Tim's car, that one of these three evils crept into our souls and shook us all to the core.

"NO!" Ebony screamed, tears of blood running down her face as she tugged at her hair in (understandable) anguish. "DOSE WERE FROME HOT TOPIK!11111111 YYYYYYYYYYYYY?" She threw herself down onto the back seat, sobbing uncontrollably and getting blood all over Tim's expensive leather upholstery. ViraTrixten made a noise of sympathy while Amandor and I exchanged guilty looks. We should have known better than to let Ebony use magic. After she had sent her suitcases into some otherworldly locker, we had all but forgotten about her numerous items of clothing. But then, Ebony had decided it was time for a bit of a change and had announced to us that she wanted to spray-paint her hair with purple. She had taken out a wand and had waved it wildly in the air, nearly poking out ViraTrixten's eye in the process. Then, she had yelled in a powerful, commanding voice;

"CROOKSHANKS!"

I sighed. Ebony's magical skills were obviously greatly impaired by her grammatical skills. I had no idea what crookshanks was, but it clearly wasn't a spell.

"It's okay, Ebony," ViraTrixten said, though her face was somewhat disgusted as Ebony moved her blood-coated face onto her shoulder. "We can buy you some new purple to spray paint your hair with..." she shot me a desperate look. I knew that ViraTrixten, being the sassy, rude, ungrateful one, was _not _the best person to comfort Ebony (the mean, idiotic, goffik one who cries tears of blood).

"Yeah, we'll go to Hot Topic soon," I said brightly. "Amandor, how long 'till we reach New York?"

"Thirty-one minutes and twenty point five seconds," he replied easily. Hmm. His internal clock was obviously in good condition.

Ebony took her head off of ViraTrixten's shoulder (she gave Ebony a revolted look and started hunting for something to clean the blood off) and stared at me with the most pitiful expression known to mankind.

"Well go2 Hot Topik?" she asked. I nodded reassuringly. Ebony gave a vague smile, and leaned back in her seat. I yawned. I was riding shotgun with Amandor, and the scenery flashed past me in blurs. I gave a smile of my own as we passed a patch of grass. Grass sometimes had flowers in it which were often laid on gravestones which had dead people under them who would go to the Underworld which was under Hades' rule and Hades was the father of Nico. My smile grew wider. Grass reminded me of Nico. Isn't that romantic? I sighed a lovestruck, happy, Mary Sue sigh, before I decided that I had better end this paragraph quickly by drifting off to sleep.

"Marie! Wake up! We're here!" ViraTrixten shoved my shoulder and I jerked back into consciousness. I grinned. Unconsciousness was always excellent if you wanted a good time lapse. Looking out of the window, I could see streaks of pink in the sky, through a thick haze of pollution. This was definitely New York City.

"Right," Amandor said, taking charge. "Marie, you and Ebony can go to Hot Topic while ViraTrixten and I find a hotel to stay in."

"Okay!" I said cheerfully, wondering if I would be able to grab a couple of gothic clothes for myself. I turned to say goodbye to ViraTrixten and Amandor, but Ebony yanked me out of the car without a word and dragged me down the busy street. She made her way through the streets of New York like a homing pigeon, refusing to pause for anything which wasn't goffik and black. I struggled to keep up with her as she shouted abuse at random passers-by while determinedly pointing her middle finger towards the sky.

"U stoopid prepz!" she shouted at a couple of innocent twelve-year olds. They both jumped in fright at the terrifying goff advancing upon them, and turned to sprint in the opposite direction. I had to admire Ebony's multitasking skills; she was using some kind of magnetic attraction towards Hot Topic, sticking up her middle finger and was shouting obscenities at the top of her lungs all at the same time. That was pretty amazing, coming from someone who couldn't properly pronounce something which was more than one syllable long.

After five more minutes of verbal abuse and obscene hand gestures, we had finally arrived at Hot Topic. The tacky, glowing red words hung above our heads, while inside lay a huge assortment of clothing. Black dresses, corsets and all other things goffik lay within the depths of Hot Topic, but my eyes came to rest on a Fred T-shirt, and I felt a pang of doubt. Ebony, however, positively skipped inside the store and her hands immediately started flicking through an array of black dresses. I sighed, and strode over to the cheap cosmetics rack... black lipstick, gothic false eyelashes... what good was all of this to someone who was already perfect?

I glanced back at Ebony, who was frolicking up and down the aisles of Hot Topic, dumping more and more clothes upon the poor shop assistant. Frowning, I glanced around. It was too quiet. Something was bound to happen soon... perhaps the shop assistant would turn into a chimera? I could deal with that.

After another two hours of Ebony trying on clothes, spending thousands of dollars and me telling her that she looked totally goffik, we left Hot Topic with a pile of super-sized bags in tow. Ebony was chattering away while I stared at the sky, half-expecting a Titan or something to show up.

"And den Draco put his- **This part of Ebony's dialogue has been censored due to graphic sex scenes. Please enjoy this replacement. "**_**Fluffskins!" cried Sparkles the baby lamb. "However will we learn how to tell the time now?" Fluffskins the baby unicorn thought and thought. Then he had an idea! He could politely ask his friend, Sunshine the kitten, to help! Sunshine would help anyone, as long as they said please and thank you!-**_"

I frowned at Ebony in confusion.

"Um... what just happened?" I asked. Ebony seemed just as confused as me. She shrugged, and then decided to resolve the problem by completely ignoring it.

"So den, Willow and I went 2 c tom riddle, and..."

My mind drifted away from Ebony and her goffik chatter. I had no idea which hotel Amandor and ViraTrixten had picked, but I allowed my Sue senses to guide me to the Plaza Hotel. I snorted. Of course, ViraTrixten would choose the most expensive hotel in New York.

I strode towards the plaza hotel with Ebony chatting away beside me. We paused so that Ebony could put her finger up at the doorman who politely opened the door for us, and strode in like we owned the place. Fifteen minutes later, after one argument with the receptionist, we let ourselves into our hotel room.

"There you are!" ViraTrixten cried. She raised her eyebrows slightly at Ebony's pile of luggage, but didn't say anything.

"Your bedrooms are over there," she said, pointing her arm meaninglessly to the right. "I made Amandor go buy us some food. He's been like, five minutes." She gave an irritated sniff and strode back to the expensively furnished living room. A plasma television screen was blaring out the news. I strode to my room, dumped a suitcase on my bed (where did the suitcase come from? I have no idea) and made my way over to the TV room.

"... house has been ruthlessly attacked by a gang of teenagers. Tim Jones was asleep in his house when a group of teenagers reportedly broke in, stole his wallet and car keys, and then smashed the side of his house repeatedly with the car, causing about fifty thousand dollars worth of damage-"

I turned the volume down, scowling at the TV. They didn't know anything. ViraTrixten raised her eyebrows at me, and then gave a sigh as she changed the channel.

"...car going at approximately two hundred miles per hour on the highway. Police are asking anyone with any further information to come foward-"

"That's not fair!" ViraTrixten cried. "We were only doing one hundred and ninety five point six seven!"

I grinned, proud of myself. We had only been on the run for a day, but we were already making headlines.

Suddenly, there was a sharp _rap _at the door and Amandor walked in, holding several boxes of sushi.

"_Sushi?_" ViraTrixten snapped. "What if I get wasabi sauce on my nails?"

Amandor ignored her, and dumped the sushi on the coffee table. He put his hands in his pockets.

"We were on the news," he said cheerfully. "A gang of rogue teenagers-"

"Yeah, we saw that," I cut across him.

"Do you reckon they'll put a price on our heads?" he asked eagerly.

"Always a possibility," ViraTrixten muttered. The next few minutes passed in silence as the babble of the TV filled the room. It suddenly occurred to me that we hadn't heard Ebony's disgrace to the English language way of speaking for at least five minutes. I frowned. That was strange. I got to my feet and strode towards Ebony's bedroom.

"Hey Ebony!" I called, swinging the door open. "There's sushi if you-"

That was all I managed to say before a black shadow flew at me and I felt a heavy blow across my head. I didn't even get a chance to scream.


	14. Chapter 14

**Again, nothing to say. Enjoy!**

My head hurt. I groaned and rolled over. Did that mean that I had been hit across the head? Oh no! Was my hair messed up?

I sat bolt upright, my hands searching desperately for a mirror. Instead, all they found was cold, stone floor. My eyes opened blearily and I took in my surroundings.

I was sitting in a cell, surrounded on all sides by stone walls. There were no windows and no doors. The roof was so high that it would have taken five ladders to reach the top.

And most importantly, there was no mirror.

I stood up, fear pounding through my veins. Where was I? What had happened? Where was Ebony and Amandor and ViraTrixten? Were they prisoners too? What state was my hair in?

I stomped my foot in frustration. I was bored already! What in Hades was I supposed to do if I was sitting in a cell with no way of getting out?

Sighing, I began to examine the stone walls. They were hard. And black. There was no sign of any door or any windows. This was going to be one boring chapter.

_What it is like to be trapped in a Boring Cell- by Marie Susanne_

_Hour one: Have been forced to use reflection on belt buckle to check hair. No noticeable damage from epic battle. However, my lipstick was smudged._

_Hour two: Apparently, time passes more slowly if you're bored. _

_Hour three: My captors could have at least provided me with a bathroom._

_Hour four: Examined nails. Noticed microscopic chip. Must fix after escape._

_Hour five: Pressed every stone in the cell to see whether or not it was a secret entrance or exit. It wasn't. _

_Hour six: Found small weakness in wall. Am currently using Sue Skills to kick the wall to pieces._

_Hour seven: Came to the unfortunate realisation that my cell is underground, and therefore kicking the walls to pieces is not particularly helpful._

_Hour seven: Sigh. I bet Nico misses me. Wait, I bet his dad captured me so that he wouldn't waste his time chasing after me anymore! That's so romantic!_

_Hour eight: I'm the daughter of POSEIDON! How am I supposed to escape if this cell is made of rock? Only Nico can rescue me!_

_Hour nine: WHY ISN'T NICO HERE YET?_

I scowled furiously as I made yet another lap around the cell. This was so frustrating! It had been almost ten hours, and I hadn't escaped yet! Furious, I punched the wall. A huge crack appeared, but I knew it wouldn't do me any good. How had they gotten me in here in the first place? I was going to kill someone!

MEANWHILE, IN EBONY'S BRANE:

I sat down on da floor dispersedly. I loked around...I gasped.

I wuz in a room wif 4 wals but no door and dere wernt any of dose windows wif bars on dem. I strated 2 cri.

"Were am i?" I yielded angrily. I wuz wearing a blak blood red mini wif skullz all ova it dat wuz red. I wuz wering a blak MCR tshirt wif rips in it dat was ripped and blak combat boots and red ledder fishnets and my hair wuz out sort of lyk Amy Lees in da video 4 my immortal when shes on da roof. I strated to cri tears of blood out of my crimson eyes. Were wuz Mary and Viretrixee amd amanda? Den I went 2 sleep.

Wen i woke up it wuz drak still. But den...i heard something! A ugly prep came fru da door. She wuz wering blak and her eyes were red n she wuz al pale but she wuz obviously a poser.

"I have some questions for you," she said coldly. I strad at her.

"OMFG hoo da #&% r u u ^%#$#*& lotlle $%^$*!" I yielded she glard at me angrily.

"You will answer my questions fully and honestly. Otherwise, you will pay the consequences," she sed. I glard at hre.

AND NOW, BACK TO MARIE SUSANNE'S BRAIN

My head jerked up, out of my bottomless pit of boredom. I could have sworn that, somewhere far, far away, I had heard a scream which had been stifled by layers of rock and dirt. I hurried over to the wall nearest to me, and pressed my ear against it. Sure enough, I heard another scream.

"Hello?" I called. No reply came. I kicked the wall in frustration.

"ViraTrixten?" I yelled. "Amandor? Ebony?" Still, there was more silence. I was furious. How on earth had they tossed me in here, anyway? I resumed my desperate pacing, glancing left and right for some kind of indication that there was an exit-

A small pebble hit me on the head, probably ruining my hair.

"Ow!" I cried indignantly, looking up. Then my jaw dropped. ViraTrixten was staring down at me, holding a finger to her lips. I gaped as she dropped a rope down to me, and hauled me out with one single motion.

"What-" I began, but I didn't need ViraTrixten's whisper of 'shut up!' to silence me. I was too busy staring around in shock. We were standing in an overwhelmingly huge hallway, with white marble pillars holding up what appeared to be a roof dating back to the roman times. Trapdoors were dotted everywhere, each of them clearly leading to cells similar to the one I had just been in.

"ViraTrixten," I said slowly, "How did you escape?"

I was a little hurt. I didn't like being shown up, even if the person in question _was _another Mary Sue.

"You really think I was going to stay in there? It was _disgusting!_" she hissed. "My nails are ruined! I had to scale a wall and bash my trapdoor through to get out!"

She sounded absolutely repulsed, but I was still irritated that ViraTrixten and her hatred of dirt had escaped before I had managed to.

"So now," I said, "we free Ebony and Amandor and get out of here?"

"Yup," ViraTrixten replied. "But I don't know where they are."

"Did you hear that scream?" I asked.

"No," she looked momentarily confused.

I shrugged, and glanced around uneasily. Ebony and Amandor were sitting beneath us, but we had no idea where.

"How did you find me?" I asked ViraTrixten.

"I would recognise your girlish, high-pitched cry for help anywhere," she said absently. "But I'm sure I didn't hear anything else."

"What happened to our clothes?" I asked.

"Would you stop asking stupid questions? If this was the real world and not a Sue story, we would have been caught by now!"

"Yeah, but-"

My voice was drowned out by another high-pitched scream. I looked at ViraTrixten in alarm, but she was already striding over to the trapdoor from which the sound was omitting.

"Wait!" I called, running after her. "Maybe we shouldn't-"

"Give me a _properly spelled _answer!" a girls voice hissed. "Are you or are you not a vampire?"

"Imma wich! Btu im also part vrompyre n i go 2 Hogwarts skull 4-"

Ebony suddenly started screaming in agony. ViraTrixten and I stared, wide-eyed, at the trap door.

"Plz!" Ebony started begging. I exchanged a meaningful look with ViraTrixten, who nodded firmly. She swung the trapdoor open, and with a yell, leapt down into the darkness. I hesitated for a split second, wondering which unknown enemy could possibly be down there, before I leapt in after her. 


	15. Chapter 15

**I'm so sorry that I didn't post last week! I was bogged down in schoolwork, and I just didn't have the time to write the next chapter. The holidays are coming up soon, so I'll be able to update about every three days for a week or so. **** Again, REALLY sorry that I didn't post.**

The smell was the first thing I noticed as I plunged into the hole. My cell had been relatively clean, but this one was obviously nothing like my cell. The horrible stench was some kind of mix between the smell of hair spray and blood. (Being a Mary Sue, I can smell blood. Remind you of anyone?) The seconds felt like hours as we fell with our hairstyles being whipped out of place. I sighed. I would have to fix that later.

We landed on the ground with two echoing _thuds_. I glanced around uneasily. The cell had become eerily silent, and was completely empty. ViraTrixten tensed beside me.

"Hello?" she called into the darkness. No reply came.

"Hello!" I joined in with her, but the silence remained as ominous as ever. Then suddenly above us, the trap door slammed shut, plunging us into darkness.

"What's going on?" ViraTrixten hissed. I shook my head wildly. The darkness wasn't a problem for us. We had night vision eyes. But everyone knows that being trapped in a silent, dark, enclosed space meant that you were about to be attacked. Sue authors aren't really known for their originality.

"Where do you think they are?" I murmured. There was no question what _they _were.

"Invisible, perhaps?" ViraTrixten said casually. I turned to study her face, momentarily confused. She seemed so calm! Like there was nothing to be afraid of! I shook my head. Of course there wasn't anything to be afraid of. We were Mary Sues. We were indestructible.

"I can't hear anything," I replied. ViraTrixten sighed huffily.

"I guess they just locked us in here so that we would starve to death," she said absently.

"How long will it take us to escape?"

"Three minutes. Two, if we had a straitjacket."

I turned to stare at her, eyebrows raised. She shrugged.

"It's a long story."

I decided that I didn't want to hear that particular story. I glanced up at the trapdoor which had swung shut. Some faceless enemy was up there, waiting to slaughter us. Surely it would be a bit of an unintelligent move to go up there to meet them?

But of course, Ebony needed our help.

"Okay," I said slowly, "but shouldn't we-"

A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the air, drowning out my voice and causing ViraTrixten's perfectly made-up eyes to widen in terror.

"Hlp! Plz! Draco!" Ebony's muffled voice forced its way through the walls and into the cell. I frowned in confusion. Ebony's voice seemed to be coming from _below _us. ViraTrixten swore loudly, and hurried to the wall on the left of me.

"How could I have missed that?" she cried furiously. She ran her hand down the wall until she reached a seemingly loose stone. Gritting her teeth, she forced the stone further into the wall. I caught my breath as the entire wall slid backwards. It was a door! The door swung inwards to reveal a dark passageway.

"Wow!" I cried. ViraTrixten scowled.

"Look at it," she snapped. "The walls are so... grimy. I'm going to get my nails ruined after this."

"Stop whining!" I said cheerfully, and strode into the tunnel. I glanced backwards to see ViraTrixten, still at the entrance of the tunnel, biting her lip. I shrugged my shoulders and strode forward. ViraTrixten seemed to come to her senses.

"Wait!" she cried, hurrying forward. I smiled to myself. Call me manipulative, but if there's one way to convince a Sue to do something for you, it's to act more brave then they are.

The tunnel was long, menacing and disgusting. The walls were covered in a thick layer of green gunk, and the air was heavy with the scent of rotting flesh. I shuddered.

"This is stupid" ViraTrixten hissed. "Ebony probably isn't even here!"

"Do you really think the author would waste her time sending us down some pointless passageway?" I retorted. ViraTrixten inclined her head slightly.

"OW!" A loud, sudden clang echoed through the air, vibrating off of the tunnel walls. I turned, my hand already forming itself into a fist, as a human shape fell from the darkness and landed at my feet. ViraTrixten was at my side immediately. Without a word, she struck the stranger on the forehead. Hard.

"Ow! Seriously! It's me! What in the name of Pan are you _doing_?" I froze in shock at Amandor's voice.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded. ViraTrixten yanked him to his feet with the same hand she had used to smash his skull moments earlier.

"I don't know," Amandor said with a shrug. ViraTrixten glared at him.

"I don't!" he insisted. "I was waiting for you guys too rescue me, and-"

"_Excuse _me?" ViraTrixten spluttered. "Us? Rescue you? It's supposed to be the other way around!"

"No it isn't!" Amandor snapped. "Girls hate it when guys rescue them!"

"We do?" I asked blankly. Amandor nodded solemnly.

"Once upon a time," he said with the air of a wise old man explaining algebra to a six-year old, "no-one cared about feminism. Then Buffy the Vampire Slayer came along, and suddenly girls would get all angry at me when I rescued them! They would tell me-"

"I don't care." ViraTrixten really was a master of cutting people off. "How did you get here?"

"Like I said, I was waiting for you to rescue me, but then suddenly, I wasn't...there anymore. I was here."

There was a brief second of silence.

"Your skill over the English language can only be rivalled by that of Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way." I said solemnly. ViraTrixten threw me a grin of appreciation. Then, her face fell and a cold ripple seemed to pass through the air.

"I just felt a disturbance in the Sueniverse," she whispered. "I think the author is about to kill someone off."

"What?" Amandor and I cried in unison. I shivered. Why would the author want to kill anyone off? Was the plot getting to complex for their simple, Sue-creating brain?

"It makes sense," ViraTrixten muttered. "If Amandor just randomly showed up here for no reason at all, it must mean that the author wants us all to be there for some huge dramatic event."

"We have to find Ebony," I said, determination ringing in my voice. I turned and continued down the dark corridor with Amandor right behind me and ViraTrixten taking up the rear.

"How long is this tunnel?" he demanded after another two minutes of walking.

"Not far now," I said evenly.

"Marie, stop!" ViraTrixten called sharply. I came to a sudden halt, and turned to face her, confused. ViraTrixten wa advancing upon me, shock plain on her face.

"How," she demanded, "did you not see that?"

"See what?" I asked, utterly bemused. ViraTrixten grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around.

"_That._" she said grimly. I gasped in horror. Barely inches from my feet was a huge, gaping crevice in the ground. If I had fallen through, I would have gone straight to the Underworld.

"Marie, are you feeling all right?" Amandor asked. "Do you eyes need checking or something?"

"No," I said, refraining from pointing out that we had visibility levels of zero at that moment, and that a normal person would have never have been able to see what was going on.

_But you aren't normal._

The nasty little voice in my brain suddenly sprang to life. I scowled, hurriedly banishing it from my thoughts, before I continued down the dark passageway.

"This isn't right," Amandor said uneasily. "We should have reached her by now."

I nodded. There was no point trying to hide my fear. Some supernatural force was toying with us, and for once, we didn't know what to do.

"Hello?" I called into the darkness, summoning up what little bravery I had left. "Anyone there?"

"Mjaryiay!" a voice suddenly cried. I raised my eyebrows.

"It's Ebony!" ViraTrixten cried. "Her spelling gets worse when she's agitated!"

Without another word, I broke into a run.

"Ebony!" I called desperately. Suddenly, for some reason, I was very, very afraid. I shuddered. I didn't usually feel fear.

"IMERITE OVA HREER!" a voice shouted back. I span round in a full circle, wildly seeking the direction which her voice was coming from.

"Here!" ViraTrixten cried frantically. She ran towards the wall and began tugging and pushing at the stones, searching for some kind of secret entrance. I ran forward to join her.

"U GAIS HAF GOTT 2 GETT MEH OUTTA HERERE NOW!" Ebony shouted through the stone wall. "SHES CUMIN!"

"Who's coming?" I demanded.

"HRE!" Ebony shouted. But her meaningless words had no effect upon us. Amandor, ViraTrixten and I had all frozen. Because somewhere, in the distance, we could hear the ever-ominous sound of approaching feet.

"Ebony," Amandor snapped through the wall, "it's been great having you in the plotline. It really has. But you're getting old. Your dialogue is just getting plain tedious. It's _boring._"

There was a beat of silence.

"Ur leefin me?" Ebony sounded absolutely heartbroken. I shuddered, trying to ignore the sound of the approaching shoes.

"Well... yes." ViraTrixten replied. "You got blood on my top."

I almost felt sorry for Ebony. I almost went up to ViraTrixten and slapped her for being so nasty. Almost.

"U LYDDLE FU-"_**Why, hello my good, good friends!' cried Sunshine the kitten. "How wonderful to see you all! Is everything all right?" Fluffskins stepped forward.**_

"_**We would be ever so grateful if you could teach us the time!" he said. "Please, will you help us?"**_

"_**Of course! Come on in! I was just about to take a strawberry cake out of the oven!"**_

I rolled my eyes at Ebony's obscene (and very graphic) language. She really wasn't doing herself any favours.

"Um, ViraTrixten?" Amandor said slowly. "I think I just found the switch to open that door."

"Oh." ViraTrixten said. Then she pulled herself together. "Well? Are you going to press it?" Amandor shrugged and stomped down upon a large stone in the ground. A hidden door slid to the side, revealing a furious Ebony.

"U wer gunna leaf meh," she snarled, advancing on ViraTrixten. She met the goff's eyes and stood her ground.

"This really isn't the time for fighting!" Amandor cried. ViraTrixten turned to face him.

"What do you mean?" she snapped. "It's always the time for-"

"It really isn't," Amandor insisted. "There's a bloodthirsty, faceless enemy of ours who is chasing us. And, more importantly, I think we're stuck in the Labyrinth."

Silence and fear (and the stench of goffik makeup) hung in the air.

"Hang on," I said, hoping for verification, "do you mean the Labyrinth that is impossible to navigate, filled with dangerous creatures, and which should have caved in entirely by now?"

"Yeah," Amandor said slowly. "That Labyrinth." __

A few more beats of silence seemed to echo in the dark chamber, only to be broken by the sound of the approaching footsteps, and, of course, Ebony's voice.

"Wats a LAbringsef?"


	16. Chapter 16

**Yay! No more schoolwork! I'll be able to update way more often now ****.**

We ran at lightning speed through the twisting, dark tunnels, completely lost. Every five seconds the tunnel would twist and branch off, leaving us about fifty different choices of how to get back to where we had started.

"This-is-useless!" ViraTrixten cried, punching a wall in frustration. I understood how annoyed she was. Our senses of direction were useless here, with this stupid Labyrinth twisting and changing with every step we took. We couldn't even stop for breaks, because every time we paused we would hear the footsteps, coming closer and closer towards us.

"Come on!" Amandor snapped. I sighed and broke into a run again. This was getting boring. Couldn't we just stand and fight? The sound of our feet echoed along the narrow walls as we ran, faster and faster, through the darkness. But the irritating footsteps which were pursuing us didn't fade; if anything, they got louder.

"Sehs cujmin!" Ebony cried desperately. I turned briefly to stare at her face. There wasn't much that could scare Enoby. But she was clearly terrified by whoever it was that was chasing us.

"This is stupid! Why can't we just stand and-" ViraTrixten suddenly broke off and skidded to a stop. We all followed her action, and turned to face her as one.

"What's wrong?" I asked. ViraTrixten's face was almost eager as she pointed towards the end of the tunnel which we had been racing through. I spun around eagerly. She had found the exit! Or a huge stash of food! Or makeup! Even Hot Topic would look good to me at this point in time. I squinted through the darkness, hoping that whatever she had seen was big, expensive and hopefully useful.

It was anything but.

Four tall, robed figures stood before us. I felt a jolt of horror run through me as the footsteps behind us came to a stop. We hadn't been followed. We'd been rounded up and herded towards the faceless enemies.

Great. Just Great.

"Are they going to stop to gloat?" Amandor wondered aloud. I shrugged. Usually, Mary-Sue villains will stop to gloat, but it was always possible that these guys were the kind of villains who didn't gloat and just tried to kill you. Beside me, Ebony gave a terrified whimper. I stared at her. There was no gun in her hands. She wasn't scowling. Her middle finger wasn't even up. Whoever these people were, they had managed to turn Ebony into some kind of cowardly, pathetic excuse for a goff. They weren't to be toyed with.

"ViraTrixten," I said cautiously, "I really think we should go."

"What?" she demanded, turning to face me. I shrugged my shoulders.

"We really should be focusing on escaping right now. We don't have time for any epic battles," I said reasonably. "Besides, your hair would get messed up."

ViraTrixten inclined her head to the side as though this was a good point. I didn't notice Amandor, slowly backing down the dark tunnel.

"Guys..." he said slowly. ViraTrixten and I both turned to stare at him. There was a strange sort of fear on his face. A very un-Gary Stu like fear. I realised that Amandor had been closer than we had been to the creepy people who were watching us- close enough to see under their hoods.

"Don't be afraid," one of the figures suddenly crooned, taking a step towards us. I shuddered at the strangely silky tone of his voice. It wasn't soothing, it was blood-chilling.

"We don't want to hurt you," another said calmly. "We just have a few questions for the 'goff' over there."

ViraTrixten raised her eyebrows and glanced at Ebony.

"That's all?" she asked. The hooded figure nodded. ViraTrixten clapped her hands together triumphantly.

"Perfect!" she cried. "Ebony, you just go with these guys and we'll go and-"

"WJAT?" Ebony shrieked. She rounded upon ViraTrixten with heavily-made up eyes blazing in fury and a black gun appearing in her hands. I smiled. It was good to have the old Ebony back.

"Ebony, you've been a wonderful contribution to the plotline, but like I said before-"

"U STOOPID *#)!##$! PREPPY #)*&^$*#%^&)**%$%^#$&**(*&^%#$%^&*^%$&*#%^*^^($%^$^&%$#%$$%&^*^$%^^&^%$^$%$%^^%^*%^$$*^^$^&^*%$*&*^#%^&*%&^!

I exchanged an uneasy glance with Amandor. The four figures still stood before us, tall and menacing as always, and ViraTrixten and Ebony were having a fight which was worthy of a couple of five-year olds. This was starting to look a bit pathetic on my part.

"Guys, can you both just calm down?" I demanded. The cloaked enemies all took another step forward.

"Yeah, shouldn't we really be trying not to DIE around now?" Amandor joined in. Both Ebony and ViraTrixten ignored us, and instead continued with the task of staring at each other with as much hate as they could.

"This has gone on long enough!" one of the cloaked figures snapped. He lifted a withered, white hand from his robes and pointed a bony finger at Ebony.

"Get her!" he snarled. The other three figures spread out and formed a loose circle around us barely an instant after his command. Now I was _really _worried. These people were good. They had excellent strategies. They knew what they were doing. And we...

I glanced over at Ebony and ViraTrixten, who were still attempting to break the world record of 'longest, loudest, patheticest argument in the history of long, loud and pathetic arguments.' I looked at Amandor, who was trying to scrape a bit of grime off of his shoe. We were hopelessly outmatched. We stood no chance at all. And that was why, when the four enemies all began to close in on us with a cold confidence, I did the only thing I could think of. Something which required very little skill, but was something which I been training with my entire life. Something which had never, not once, let me down.

I blew something up.

Ebony should have known that all of that hairspray wasn't good for her. I hurriedly pulled out the box of matches which I always kept in my boots. They've come in handy on numerous occasions. I expertly lit one, small flame and gazed at it for a second. So small, but with so much potential. Then I threw it in the general direction of Ebony's hair, and let hair spray, fire, and Mother Nature do the rest.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT CAMP HALF BLOOD:

Rachel ran towards the Big House with fear etched across her face.

"Chiron!" she called, gasping for breath and clutching her sides. A few seconds passed before Chiron trotted out of the door wearing an expression of concern.

"Is something wrong, Rachel?" he asked. Rachel nodded wildly.

"Apollo... just told me... Prophecy-" she gasped. Chiron's tail flicked nervously.

"Apollo?" he asked sharply. "What did he say? What happened?"

"He said that... there was another prophecy! It was about the Sue quest!"

Chiron's eyebrows rose.

"Come in," he said, "and tell me exactly what happened."

BACK TO SUELAND

I fumbled through the black smoke, searching desperately for someone or something-preferably someone or something that was on my side- to help me. Who knew that Ebony's hairspray could do so much damage?

Suddenly, a telltale cough somewhere to my left told me exactly where Ebony was. Who else would somehow be able to spell a cough wrong?

"Ebony!" I hissed. I groped through the darkness, searching desperately for everyone's favourite goff.

"IMM rite hree!" and a goffik-white hand with black fingernails felt its way through the smoke. I grabbed Ebony's arm and continued through the smoke. Where were ViraTrixten and Amandor? I wasn't exactly going to continue the quest alone with Ebony. By the looks of things, a pack of evil, faceless people were after her vampire blood. Travelling alone with her was the last thing which I wanted to do.

"Marie!" I heard someone cry. I spun to see ViraTrixten and Amandor behind me.

"Great!" I hissed. "The smoke should be a good cover. If we run fast enough, we can lose them!'

"Come on!" ViraTrixten murmured. She spun on her heel and raced through the smoke. I followed after her with Ebony in tow. I didn't know where we were going, but ViraTrixten seemed to. She raced down one tunnel and through the next, apparently able to navigate the impossible tunnels.

"Keep moving," she would snap whenever anyone showed any sign of slowing. "We've got to throw them off..."

We ran for what felt like hours. The tunnel seemed to be changing constantly- sometimes it would be the graffiti-covered underground workings of a train system, others it would be some kind of ancient roman tunnel. I didn't pay too much attention to the walls; only when we finally stopped in a small, dust-coated room. I noticed that there were about ten tunnels branching off from here. Already I had forgotten which one we had come from.

"I think we lost them," ViraTrixten said. Amandor nodded stiffly. There was a moment of silence.

"So... what now?" I asked. The last thing I expected was the cold, unearthly voice to ring out from behind me.

"_Now, _we are going to have a little chat."

I spun around. Standing before me was an inhumanly beautiful woman. She seemed to glow, and I realised instantly that I was looking at a goddess.


	17. Chapter 17

**Holidays! Yay! Freedom! I'm going to try and have another chapter by Wednesday! **

The goddess regarded us all with a strange curiosity in her eyes, like we were a distorted image of what she had been expecting. Her hair hung in gentle waves around her shoulders, and she was wearing a simple white toga which flowed gracefully all the way down to her feet. I glanced around at my companions; we were good-looking enough to make any minor goddess jealous, but we all had knotted hair and dirt on our faces. Our clothes suddenly seemed cheap and tacky next to this beautiful woman. Self-consciously, I tried to rub a smudge of dirt off of my arm. It got bigger.

"Hooda hell r u?1?" Ebony demanded. The goddess' eyebrows rose as she turned her gaze towards the goff.

"I," she said icily "am Hera."

She waved her hand carelessly to the side, and suddenly the tiny room was filled with bright light. My eyes immediately adjusted to the abrupt change in light, and for the first time I was able to get a good look at the room. It was ugly.

"Why are you here?" Amandor asked. I noticed that he seemed to have a little more respect than Ebony. He was probably hoping to change her whole 'maiden goddess' status.

"We will get to that shortly. Right now, I would like to ask why _you _are here." She sounded like a mother who had caught her kids stealing candy or playing in the dirt.

"We were running for our lives!" ViraTrixten snapped. Hera nodded, and gave us a warm smile which still seemed a little fake.

"Of course," she purred. "That lot certainly is a nasty piece of work."

"You know them?" ViraTrixten demanded.

"Oh, I certainly don't _know _them!" Hera trilled cheerfully. "They are a bad lot, though. I would avoid them if I were you."

"Thanks for bestowing your painfully obvious wisdom upon us, Queen Hera," ViraTrixten said with a mock bow. "But would you mind getting to the _I am going to bestow some wisdom upon you which will alter the entire plotline _bit?"

"Of course!" Hera cried. "Have a seat, everyone. Don't tire your legs out." Four chairs randomly appeared out of thin air. We all glanced at each other uneasily before taking a seat. Hera was smiling at us like every doting mother would, but there was no twinkle in her eyes and her expression was frosty. When she used her powers to oh-so-kindly help us, I couldn't help but get the sense that she was also trying to show us that we were outmatched.

"You see, young demigods-" she began, but she was immediately cut off.

"We aren't really demigods. More like... three quarter gods! Or nine tenth gods!"

Hera silenced ViraTrixten with a single cold, icy stare.

"As I was saying, young demigods, there has been a small outrage at the way you four were sent off on a Quest. Many do not like you Mary Sues very much-"

"No kidding," ViraTrixten muttered under her breath.

"-but not many people worried too much until a couple of days ago. Strange things have been happening for a while lately, but it's gotten out of control."

"What happened?"

"I won't go into the details. But a new prophecy was given, by someone who is not the Oracle. Only Apollo knows the exact details. I can tell you, however, that the balance of our world has been tipped. You are all aware, I am sure, of the imbalances in the Sueniverse?"

"Yes," we answered in unison. Hera smiled approvingly. I half expected her to give us all a gold star.

"Very good!" she said. "But we believe that it is now affecting the normal universe. So many strange happenings..." she shuddered.

"What?" I demanded.

"I cannot tell you. I should leave now." Hera smiled at us, and for a split second I thought I saw some genuine warmth in her face.

"Wait a minute!" ViraTrixten snapped. "That was worthless information! How is that going to help?"

"It will if you let it, young demigod," she said solemnly. I waited for dramatic violins to start playing in the background, but then I remembered that the sound effects were somewhat limited in fanfiction world. No, instead of our own personal orchestra, Hera simply faded away. The invisible source of light disappeared (I decided to ignore the ironic idiocy of that comment) and a second later, so did the chairs. Ebony, Amandor, ViraTrixten and I all fell to the ground with hard _thuds. _

"That was stupid and useless," ViraTrixten muttered.

"Not entirely," I said slowly.

"She didn't tell us _anything!" _

"She gave away small things."

"Like what?" ViraTristen usually sounded sceptical. But right now she sounded as though I had just informed her that I planned to marry a squirrel and choke to death on a pickle.

"She said that only Apollo knows the exact details," Amandor suddenly piped up.

"Someone who is not the Oracle gave another Prophecy," I said.

"Is that even possible?" ViraTrixten demanded. Beside her, Amandor shrugged. I looked around, and I realised that we were all just as clueless as Ebony. We were being forced to squirrel around for little pieces of information, combing through everything that had happened to us since our Quest had begun. It was as though someone had tracked down a puzzle and had smashed every piece into a thousand more pieces. And about three quarters of them were still missing.

"Right," I snapped. "Here's what we're going to do. We are going to track down Apollo and demand to know what is going on. Then, once we get a reasonably clear idea of what to do, we continue with the Quest."

"NO!" ViraTrixten shouted. Her voice echoed along the walls of the Labrynth. "We're supposed to be looking for the Ugly Mary Sue!"

"We have no idea where to go or how to find her! Apollo could give us the answers!"

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then we continue our aimless wander of sub-plotlines and minor characters," I snapped. ViraTrixten scowled at me, clearly not yet ready to release her defiance.

"Besides, we _know _something's wrong," I continued. "This Labyrinth shouldn't even exist anymore! But for some reason, it still does! And Mary Sues are supposed to be the most adored, respected, wonderful people in the entire world! But we're shoved into tiny cabins and ignored by the rest of the world! And by the sounds of it, Apollo knows why!"

There was a second of silence. Amandor shifted his feet uncomfortably. Ebony was reapplying her white foundation, obviously with no clue as to what was going on.

"Fine," ViraTrixten finally said. "We'll track down Apollo. But first of all, how are we supposed to get out of this Labyrinth?"

I glanced around at the surrounding doors. Somewhere in here there was an enemy waiting to slaughter us. If we took the wrong path, we could walk right into their arms.

"This door!" Amandor cried, running towards a completely random door which was identical to all of the others.

"How do you know which door?" ViraTrixten said, hurrying to his side.

"I used an ancient and intricate art which requires skill, knowledge and great strength of spirit and mind," Amandor said solemnly.

"Wat arte?" Ebony asked eagerly.

"I guessed."

"O."

Amandor flung the door open and hurried down a darkened pathway. I ran a hand along the wall. It was made of some kind of stone. I grabbed hold of Ebony's wrist and pulled her in behind me while following the sound of ViraTrixten and Amandor's footsteps. We walked for a few minutes as the darkness seemed to close in upon us and engulf all of our surroundings. With an impatient sigh, Amandor dug his expensive phone out of his pocket and turned it on. The faint, artificial light didn't do much to compete with the darkness, but it was still comforting.

"This is disgusting," ViraTrixten muttered as we splashed through a mud puddle. "I can't wait to get out of here, rent a nice hotel room and go straight to the spa."

Amandor, who had been casually messing around on his phone while we walked, suddenly froze in mid-step and stared at the screen with shock in his eyes.

"I don't think that's going to happen," he said in a strained tone. I examined his face. His eyes were wide with shock.

"What is it?" I demanded. Amandor held up his phone for me to see.

"Look at this," he said. I stared at the phone. It appeared to be some kind of news website.

"Hang on, we're underground! How did you get reception! That makes no-"

'Just look at the article!" Amandor snapped. ViraTrixten slid to my side to read. Ebony did as well, which was a surprise in itself. Could she even read?

My absent train of thought screeched to a halt, however, as I saw the article which Amandor was showing us. There, pasted across the front of the webpage, was a huge photograph of all of our faces. There was my student ID photograph, displayed to the entire world. It was a good thing that I was so photogenic. Above that was the title _"Manhunt Continues- Teenage Gang still at Large."_

I squinted harder, trying to read the article.

_The search for the gang of teenagers who have wreaked havoc across America continues, but no-one seems to have spotted the delinquents since Monday. The group of four first came to the attention of authorities when they reportedly broke into the house belonging to the stepfather of one of the four. They stole a credit card and a set of car keys, before smashing the house repeatedly and destroying half of the main structure, causing fifty thousand dollars worth of damage. They then withdrew all money belonging to the stepfather from the bank, and went on a highway rampage. At an average speed of 200 miles per hour in the stolen car, the gang made their way to New York. They then used the stepfather's money to buy an excessive amount of clothing from Hot Topic (video surveillance has captured two of the gang on their shopping trip) before booking a room at the Plaza Hotel. Less than twenty-four hours later, the room was almost completely destroyed in what police say appears to be a violent struggle, and the delinquents had disappeared. _

_Since then, no-one has seen the gang. They have apparently disappeared off the face of the earth, but police are urging anyone with information to come forward. This gang is said to be extremely dangerous, and if anyone sees them, they are urged to contact authorities immediately. _

"We've been down here," ViraTrixten said slowly, "for a _week."_

"And if we show our faces in public..." Amandor began, but trailed off.

"OMG!11111"Ebony cried.

"What?" I asked eagerly. Ebony pointed to the huge picture which was being displayed. Evidently, in the time it had taken me to read an entire news article, Ebony's brain had still been registering the huge picture of us, and what it meant.

"were on da Nwes!" she exclaimed.


	18. Chapter 18

**Aaaah... holidays. So much freedom. **

"Stop being stupid!"

"You're being stupid!"

"We've already been down this tunnel!"

"No, we haven't!"

"Yes we have! We're going in circles!"

"It's just the Labyrinth playing tricks on you!"

"No, it's just the Labyrinth playing tricks on YOU!"

"Come on, let's go down this tunnel."

"WE'VE ALREADY BEEN DOWN THERE!"

"NO WE HAVEN'T!"

I yawned as ViraTrixten and Amandor continued their bickering. They had been fighting for at least an hour now as we made our way cautiously through the seemingly endless tunnels. We hadn't seen anything which remotely resembled an exit, but then again, that was probably the Labyrinth's intention. All we wanted was to get out of the Labyrinth, so of course, the Labyrinth would make it impossible to do so.

"This way!"

"NO!"

This was getting tedious. All I wanted was a nice hot shower and something nice to eat. But, I reminded myself bitterly, we couldn't exactly skip into a classy day-spa. The police were after us. If we showed our faces in the human world, every security camera within a five-mile radius would hone in on our movements.

"R u ok?" Ebony asked me. I nodded stiffly, not wanting to encourage her any further. Conversation with Ebony in too many doses could be lethal.

"So... when we do get out of here, how are we supposed to find Apollo?" I demanded, partially to shut ViraTrixten and Amandor up, partially to avoid conversing with Ebony.

"I guess on Olympus?" Amandor said with a shrug. He clearly hadn't given it too much thought.

"We can't really go there," I said. "We'd get pulverized."

"We could shoot his sun chariot down," ViraTrixten suggested.

"we culd castre a spel on jim?" Ebony said. "Oce wen i wuz fiting wif drako i shotted dis spel at him nd he strted bein al nice again!"

"Ebony, you can't use magic to save your life. You just wave your wand around and scream whatever word comes to mind," ViraTrixten snapped. It was sad, but true. Ebony didn't seem to take much offense at ViraTrixten's remark. She just spent a few seconds babbling on about Draco and her old 'skull'.

We continued walking on in silence. I was rather pleased with myself. I had made ViraTrixten and Amandor shut up and now we actually seemed to be getting somewhere! The tunnel had finally changed from an ugly sewer into some kind of Ancient Greek hallway. Much better.

"Why do you think Hera wanted to help us?" Amandor asked suddenly. "I hear she got really mad when Marie was claimed. Why would she suddenly decide to help a bunch of Sues?"

"Beats me," ViraTrixten said. "It could be a trap,"

There was a nasty silence after this. It would be really depressing to have done all of this work, only to walk right into some stupid trap. None of us really wanted t believe that.

"Perhaps she's decided that she likes us!" I said hopefully. No-one answered. I hadn't expected them to.

"This is boring," ViraTrixten complained after another five minutes which boasted a distinct lack of conversion. "Can't this tunnel do anything _exciting _for a-"

The ground in front of ViraTrixten suddenly disappeared as she spoke, caving in to form a perfect, circular hole in the ground. Before any of us could speak, the hole filled with water, just as ViraTrixten stepped into it.

"ARGH!" she screamed, splashing around in the water. She was already drenched; her hair hung in pathetic knots around her head and her make-up was dribbling off of her face. We all took one look at her furious, scowling face before we burst into gales of laughter.

"Ah, irony," Amandor chortled as he yanked ViraTrixten out of the water. "Don't you just love it when it comes to call upon nasty, heartless characters?"

"There was nothing ironic about that!" ViraTrixten snarled. "This stupid Labyrinth is trying to kill me!"

I'm sure that I wasn't the only one who heard a distant voice, somewhere far away, laughing just as hard as I had been moments before. Shivering, I glanced into the pond which ViraTrixten had fallen victim to. There was something glowing in the water. Something blue...

"Stop laughing at me! You wait, I am going to put something really horrible in all of your beds!"

"What, like a bottle of non-designer nail polish?"

"Guys, have a look at this." My voice sounded strange, inhuman. The others must have noticed this (with the exception of Ebony, she isn't really the type to notice things) because they hurried to my side.

"Something's glowing in there!" Amandor breathed.

"You don't think-"

"The mark of Daedalus?"

I swallowed, eyeing the water hopefully. I hadn't minded being stuck in the Labyrinth too much, but now that there was a promise of escape, a glimmer of hope, I would do anything to get out of there.

"Only one way to find out," I said, plunging my hand into the water. It was cold- colder than what I had expected it to be, but it was not unbearable. I moved my hand towards the source of the strange, glowing light in the water, until my fingers came to rest upon the wall of the pool. I could feel a carving in the stone, and as I traced it I could feel the mark of Daedalus. Eagerly, I pressed my palm against the mark.

For a split second, nothing happened, and a bitter disappointment clouded the air, but then the water began to bubble. I withdrew my hand, shocked, as the entire pool began to froth wildly. I glanced at my friends, but they were all clearly as dumbfounded as I was. This was supposed to be an exit, not an underground spa.

"Um..." ViraTrixten began, apparently unable to come up with any witty and/or sarcastic comments. She was still sopping wet, I noticed, and looked rather pathetic with her smudged make-up and ruined hair.

Then, just as suddenly as the bubbles had started, they stopped. I was almost ready to turn around and look for whoever it was who had the switch controlling the spa, but Amandor interrupted my thoughts.

"Marie..." he said slowly. He was staring in disbelief at the trap/spa. I peered into it, and almost fell in with shock.

The tiny pool had turned into some kind of downward, water-filled tunnel. It was rather like a plunge pool, but I assumed that this was much deeper and much more dangerous.

"What are the odds that the exit is through there?" ViraTrixten asked.

"Very, very high," Amandor replied easily. ViraTrixten shot him a deadly Sue Stare. Clearly, she had intended it as a rhetorical question.

"Anyone fancy a swim?" I said in a falsely cheerful voice.

Two minutes, one heated argument and a whole lot of goffik swearing later, we were all standing at the rim of the pool with reluctance hanging in the air.

Amandor cleared his throat. "Erm... I'll go first, then?"

Normally, I was all about feminism. I hated letting other people, particularly males, outshine me. But right now I was all too willing to push Amandor into that pool and let him be the superhero, while I would be the faithful sidekick. I had no idea why I was so reluctant to jump into that water, particularly since I was part Sea God, but I was suddenly filled with irrational doubt.

"Go on," I said, gesturing to him. Amandor took a deep breath and dove into the water, swimming as quickly as a fish. I glanced at ViraTrixten, who nodded slightly.

"My make-up's already ruined," she said bitterly. "This shouldn't make much difference." And she dove in after Amandor. I turned to Ebony, sort of worried about leaving her here on her own. But I didn't need to worry. Without so much as a glance at me, she dove in.

I glanced around. It felt strange to be alone in this dark, eerie tunnel. I looked at the pool in front of me. With any luck, it would act as an exit and would get me out of this Labyrinth. I took a step back and plunged into the water.

I slipped through the water with no more substance than ghost. I hardly even needed to kick. The water swirled all around me, propelling me downward. I closed my eyes as I gracefully swam through the water, smiling blissfully.

My head hit the ground with a sharp _thunk. _

Ow. That was irritating. I glanced upwards, and I immediately saw daylight. I realised that the tunnel was shaped in a perfect curve; it moved downwards, twisted, and then moved back upwards. Eagerly, I kicked towards the daylight. I never thought that I would be so happy to see the sun as my head broke through the water, and I found myself in... a swimming pool?

ViraTrixten, Amandor and Ebony were all standing anxiously at the side of the pool. Gratefully, I sucked in a lungful of air and kicked myself to the water's edge.

It was a backyard pool, that was for certain, obviously belonging to some middle-class person. We were standing in a well kept but rather small backyard which sat next to a reasonably big, two-storey white house.

"Let's get out of here, quick," Amandor said with an anxious glance at the house. I could understand his fear. If someone was home and they saw a group of known delinquents in their pool, they would call the cops before we could say 'prep.' We all hurried towards the bushes that were being used as a fence and leapt over. I tried not to smirk as I looked at Ebony's face. All of her black make-up had smudged, making her look like some kind of demonic clown of doom. She caught me laughing and stuck her middle finger up at me.

"Guys..." ViraTrixten said. I glanced up, and I actually could have sworn that I felt my jaw hit the ground. Stretched out in front of us was a city we had all seen a thousand times before in photographs. Of course, when I said that, I hadn't been accounting for our resident goff.

"Were r we?' Ebony asked. ViraTrixten swore in a low, furious voice.

"We're in _Athens,_" she hissed. "Bloody Athens!"

"That's not possible," Amandor snapped. "How could we have gotten from America to Greece, on foot, in two days?"

"Marie, _why are you smiling?_" ViraTrixten snarled. "This is horrible!"

"No," I said, allowing my grin to stretch further across my face. "It's not."

"And why not, exactly?" ViraTrixten demanded. I turned to face her, grinning.

"Because," I said, "I have the perfect plan to get Apollo's attention now! All we need is some rope and a shotgun!"

My brilliant idea was met with silence. I didn't blame them. When I think about it, I guess it did sound pretty ominous.


	19. Chapter 19

**I'm going to be on camp for the next week, so I won't be updating early. Sorry!**

"So... how exactly is this supposed to work?" ViraTrixten carefully balanced her shotgun in one hand and a long coil of rope in the other.

"It's simple!" I said enthusiastically. "Olympus was once located in Greece, right?"

"Yeah... but how is that going to get Apollo's attention?"

"There's bound to be a statue of Apollo around somewhere, right?"

"What do you suggest? We blow the statue to bits and make him furious?"

"Sort of, but not quite. He'll just turn up and blast us all into tiny little pieces if we do that. We need to get his attention without making him angry."

"And how do you suggest we do that?"

The grin on my face must have been scary, because ViraTrixten and Amandor both took a step backwards.

Ten minutes later, we were leaping through someone's backyard. We jumped over a fence and came to a small park which had trees growing everywhere. Perfect for secretive Demigod briefings.

"Right, here's what we're going to do," I said. "We need to find the biggest, most impressive statue of Apollo around. Remember, we need to cause enough mayhem to convince him to leave New York and get over here."

"Got it," Amandor and ViraTrixten said. Ebnony just looked vague.

"Okay, Amandor and I can take the western part of the city, and you and Ebony can take the eastern-"

ViraTrixten scowled at me before snapping "I'm not going with her!"

"Well, neither am I!" I replied, glaring at her. We both directed meaningful glares at Amandor, but he just shook his head.

"She's not exactly going to help me give a good first impression to the ladies of Athens," he said. I couldn't argue with him there. Ebony only gave good first impressions with inanimate objects. Cheese, for example.

"How about I go north, Amandor goes east, Marie goes south and Ebony goes west?" ViraTrixten asked. I shrugged. It wasn't a bad idea, apart from the fact that we were leaving Ebony on her own. Even worse, we had given her a _job. _Ebony wouldn't be able to spot Apollo if he was dancing around naked in front of her.

"I guess..." I said slowly, mentally incinerating any hope that we would find a statue of Apollo in the western part of the city.

"It's settled, then. If we find a suitable statue, we'll call each other." ViraTrixten smiled as she held out her sleek, shiny phone.

"Wait... I thought we weren't supposed to use phones?" Amandor asked. ViraTrixten rolled her eyes.

"We're in _Greece, _genius. All of the monsters are long gone." With an exasperated sigh, ViraTrixten rotated on the spot and began walking north. I sighed, and began striding in the opposite direction. I threw a glance over my shoulder, watching as Amandor politely explained the art of walking west to Ebony.

After an hour of examining the streets, I couldn't help but feel slightly awed by Athens. It was an amazing place, even if it did have a bunch of stupid tourists wandering around. I could see why the gods had once called it their home. The people seemed very eager to worship the gods, what with the big ancient relics dedicated to one god or another. I was having such a good time that I didn't pay any attention to my surroundings until my phone buzzed.

"Hello?" I said as I picked up.

"I found one!" ViraTrixten's voice was filled with triumph- and smugness. I decided to overlook her arrogant tone. "It's in some museum-type thing. I'll text you the address."

"Good work, ViraTrixten!" I said.

"I know, right? I've already called Amandor, so all you need to do is let Ebony know!" she said cheerfully. I nodded once, then realised that she couldn't see me nodding, so I gave her a falsely delighted 'sure!' and hung up.

Idiot.

Sighing, I dialled Ebony's number, doubts springing into my mind. I was just about to hit the 'call' button when my phone buzzed again. I frowned. Hadn't ViraTrixten irritated me enough?

"Yes, ViraTrixten?" I asked in a sugary sweet voice.

"Um, Marie? Don't worry about calling Ebony. She's here already." ViraTrixten somehow managed to convey an eye-roll over the phone.

"Oh. Wait, how did she get there?"

"I honestly have no idea."

Deciding not to press the matter anymore, I hung up the phone and, with a long-suffering sigh, began my trek north.

After fifteen minutes of walking, I decided that enough was enough. I noted a young couple driving in an impressive, fire-engine red Mercedes screeching to a halt in front of some traffic lights. Without a second thought, I leapt forward and swung the driver's door open.

Before either the man or his girlfriend had time to say a word, I had used my Super Sue Kung Fu to slash through the guy's seatbelt and sent him flying out of the car. His girlfriend immediately began to scream. I rolled my eyes in exasperation as I climbed into the driver's seat. She continued screaming as she fumbled with her seatbelt and jumped out of the car just as the light turned green. I smiled, and shot forward. Never mind that I was underage and didn't have the faintest idea how to drive. This was still the greatest car ever! I should rob from rich men more often.

With the aid of my sweet new ride, I reached the address which ViraTrixten had given me in three minutes flat. Of course, I had killed two people, hospitalised nineteen, destroyed two buildings and a fire hydrant and had gone at about double the speed limit, but that didn't matter.

"There you are!" ViraTrixten cried. I noticed that Amandor was already here, and he had clearly destroyed a few things of his own. The expensive motorcycle which he had borrowed-without asking -was covered in dents and scratches.

"Let's hope your plan works," she said, using one of the most cliché lines to ever grace the pages of a novel. I snorted. We stepped into some kind of open-air museum which was surrounded on all sides by high stone walls. There were statues scattered all around the garden- Zeus, Athena, Hades. I noticed that a lot of the statues had had leaves artfully nailed over certain strategic areas to preserve the innocence of children who visited. I wondered briefly about the guy whose job it was to nail fake leaves into the god's genitals. I hoped that he was paid well.

"Okay," ViraTrixten said, striding up to a big statue of Apollo. "According to the stupid little tacky gold plate that's always put next to these things, this statue was supposedly a present to Apollo. It was said to be located on the floating island of Delos, which is Apollo's birthplace. So, if we're going to accidentally-on-purpose vandalise a statue, this is the one to use."

"Good work, ViraTrixten" I said, regarding the statue.

"Sooooo wat od we do?" Ebony asked. I sighed.

"Amandor, here's the shotgun," ViraTrixten said, completely ignoring Ebony.

"And here," I said cheerfully, "is the rope!" I held out our coil of rope proudly. I noticed that we were attracting a few stares, like people thought that we were axe-murderers or something.

"Right," I said, handing ViraTrixten the rope while Amandor was left to brandish the very long, very lethal-looking shotgun. "ViraTrixten, tie the rope around the base of that statue. Amandor, when I give the signal, you start shooting like a maniac. Got it?"

"I still say that he'll be mad," ViraTrixten said.

"No he won't!" I insisted. "It's foolproof! You and Ebony will get into a fight, and she'll pull out her gun. Then you start shooting wildly at each other, but Amandor will make it look as though his aim is so bad that he shoots Apollo's statue! Apollo will come rushing over here, demanding to know why his son has such pathetic aim and he'll offer us all archery lessons!"

"Then what's the rope for?"

"Well... that's for pulling his statue over. We yank the thing over, and it'll _really _grab his attention!"

There was a second of silence.

"I can _not _believe I'm actually going through with this!" ViraTrixten cried. "That's the most pathetic plan in the world! I would have expected something like that from Ebony!"

Ouch. That was harsh.

"Just tie the rope 'round the base of the statue," I snapped. "If the ground starts to rumble or something, pull. Amandor! Now!"

It wasn't a very creative signal, but it did the job. Amandor took a deep breath, sighed, and turned towards Ebony.

"Ebony... I just want you to know that... you're a prep."

The word seemed to echo through the air as Ebony's face quickly morphed from stunned to furious. She advanced upon Amandor, snarling with all of the ferocity of a tiger.

"WAT DID U JUSR SAY?11111111111111111" she shrieked.

"You... you're a prep," Amandor said, although he was gradually growing very pale. "Yeah, you're so preppy that I bet you own... fifteen hot pink polo shirts!"

Ebony spluttered, apparently unable to find words which summed up her fury towards Amandor. But she found her tongue soon enough.

"U...U- _**"This pie is delicious!" cried Fluffskins. Sunshine beamed with delight.**_

"_**Why thank you! I do love bringing a little bit of Sunshine into everyone's lives!"**_ _**she said. "That's why I'm called Sunshine!"**_

_**The three friends all laughed together and reached for their second piece of pie as the birds outside chirped happily."**_

I blinked. Wow. I had never seen Ebony so angry. For some reason, her once-blue eyes had turned red.

"IL SHOEW U, U P;REPPY POSRE –PREP!11111111111" she shrieked. Her signature black gun appeared in her hands, and shots rang through the air as she fired wildly at Amandor. Amandor leapt behind a statue, his gun answering even as he flew through the air. It was only then that I noticed people pointing and screaming. There was a sudden flood of people as they all rushed towards the exits as one.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. Amandor, who was pretending to be a bad shot when he was really a very good shot, stumbled backwards and somehow- to this day I don't know how- managed to shoot Apollo's statue right between the eyes when he was supposed to be aiming for Ebony. I gaped in disbelief as the ground began to rumble. Overhead, the sun seemed to become a little bit brighter.

"ViraTrixten, pull that thing over!" I yelled. Ebony continued shooting mercilessly at Amandor while ViraTrixten gave the rope an almighty tug. I watched as the statue toppled over and its head split in two. All of a sudden, I began to bitterly regret my plan.

"Apollo's coming!" ViraTrixten cried. I winced as a bullet whizzed past Amandor's ear.

"Ebony, stop!" I cried. "He was just joking!"

"Yeah!" Amandor cried desperately. "You're the goffiest goff in the history of goffik goffs!"

Ebony hesitated for a split second before she beamed with pleasure.

"Thx!" she said.

"He's going to be here any minute!" ViraTrixten cried. "This was a stupid plan!"

"It was not stupid!"

"It was!"

The ground rumbled again, and I had to fight off a stab of fear. I got the feeling that, perhaps, the gods had been waiting for us to give them an excuse to incinerate us.

Great. Just great.

I bit my lip as a bright light appeared in the centre of the museum. Beside me, ViraTrixten hastily reapplied her make-up, Amandor gripped his gun tightly and Ebony stood there with a vague smile on her face.


	20. Chapter 20

**Aaargh, I've posted it late again! My darling teachers have decided to hit me with all they've got, and my poor computer is flooded with assignments and study notes. Sorry for the way I abandoned the usual 'post on Sunday' routine. **

I found myself almost blinded by the column of light in the centre of the courtyard, and quickly averted my eyes. The air had suddenly begun to grow hot- very hot. Almost as if the sun itself was gradually materialising in front of us, about to burn us all to death. I took a hesitant step back.

_You're a Mary Sue,_ I said to myself. _You can't die. Not unless it's in a cheesy, self-sacrificing, badly written way. _

I took a more confident step forward again. Then I took another step back. The process repeated itself until I spotted ViraTrixten and Amandor staring at me, and realised that I appeared to be doing some kind of awkward line dance.

"Wjart r u doin?" Ebony asked, momentarily distracted. There must have been a distinct lack of shiny objects in sight today, because she continued staring at me with that vague Ebony look in her eyes.

"I'm just-"

Before I got a chance to finish my sentence, the light suddenly seemed to fade. I spun round to see that I was now looking at a car. A shiny, golden glowing sports car. It wasn't quite as bright as the column of light had been, but it was still enough to make me throw my hands over my eyes. ViraTrixten pulled a pair of Armani sunglasses from her pocket and slid them on, all the while pouting at the figure in the car.

The door slowly swung outwards, and an expensive white shoe appeared. I held my breath and waited, preparing for whatever it was we were about to see. I couldn't suppress my gasp when my eyes came to rest upon the visitor.

Apollo was hot. Hotter than Nico. He looked, I noticed, a bit like Amandor, but Amandor's hotness was a Gary-Stu kind of hotness. Apollo had a god hotness.

My brain instantly went haywire, producing and then solving hotness equations. I could have gone on forever about Apollo and his hot, hot hotness, but I hurriedly cleared my head, just in time to see Amandor step forward.

"Father," he began, "It's nice to finally meet-"

"What do you want?" Apollo snapped. He glared (hotly) at the ruined statue lying on the ground, then up at his son. Amandor's face fell slightly, and I felt a pang of pity. I had never met my dad, so I didn't know what it was like to be totally rejected by your parent. But judging by the look of hurt which had momentarily crossed Amandor's face, it didn't feel good.

"Well?" Apollo said, turning his gaze onto each one of us in turn. Ebony was scrutinising him through her black-coated eyes. After a quick inspection, she turned to me and mouthed the word 'prep'.

"Um, we were wondering about this prophecy, actually," ViraTrixten said, batting her eyelashes so fast that they appeared blurred. I guess she was doing some hotness calculations of her own.

"Don't expect me to be able to interpret that ridiculous _ride a cow _prophecy," Apollo snarled. "None of those Mary Sue prophecies make sense."

"Actually, it's a different one," I said. "Hera told us about it." At my words, Apollo's face seemed to freeze for a second. He regarded me carefully, and I thought I glimpsed a bit of fear in his eyes.

"You shouldn't know anything about that!" he cried. "When I get my hands on Hera-"

"Listen, could you just tell us what you know? Please?" I added a hint of plea into my voice. Apollo seemed to be in the midst of some kind of internal argument. He scowled at me, obviously falling victim to the power of my big green eyes. All was silent for several minutes before Apollo suddenly began to talk.

"I'm not going to tell you everything. But, if I tell you parts of what I know, perhaps things will work in our favour."

"What do you mean?" Amandor asked. I wasn't surprised to hear an edge of coldness in his voice. He was clearly trying to block any emotion.

"Where to begin?" Apollo murmured absently.

"dats cars kawaii." Ebony said. We all turned to stare at her. She was smiling at the bright, glowing car behind Apollo.

"It shuld b blak, tho," she continued. ViraTrixten sighed heavily. After another moment of awkward silence, Apollo cleared his throat.

"Erm... yes. So. The prophecy. I'm sure that you are all aware of the hatred many feel for you Mary Sues-"

"Way to rub it in." ViraTrixten snapped.

"- and I am sure you have noticed the vast number of Mary Sues currently in existence. There are thousands of you."

"So?" I asked.

"_So, _that means that none of you are Mary Sues at all," Apollo snapped.

Silence hung in the air while we all gawked at Apollo like idiots. Then ViraTrixten, who can't be silenced for more than five seconds, spoke up.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Think about it," Apollo said. "A Mary Sue is someone who is absolutely perfect, who is better than all those around them. But you aren't better than everyone else- there are thousands of other people who are just as perfect as you."

"So... what you're saying is that... there can only be one?" I asked, a quiver of fear in my tone. I had been perfect my entire life, and now this guy was telling me that I wasn't superior to everyone else in the world?

"Pretty much," Apollo said with a shrug.

"But... that means if I want to be a proper Mary Sue, I'll have to kill all the other Mary Sues on the planet!" ViraTrixten cried.

"That's basically how it works," Apollo said cheerfully. "And there's more."

"What do you mean?" Amandor demanded.

"Because you are not, technically, Mary-Sues, you have all gradually been losing your Mary Sue qualities. You may not have noticed it, but not one of you is as perfect as you were when you began your quest. And you will continue to lose your perfection as long as more Mary Sues are created. Your eyes will stop changing colour, your unrealistic powers will fade, your intelligence and wit will leave you, you will begin to break out like normal teenagers-"

"Shut UP!" ViraTrixten shrieked. She looked almost deranged; her eyes had been bulging more and more with each word Apollo said. I wouldn't be surprised if she started frothing at the mouth.

"Um..." I said, hoping to distract ViraTrixten from the idea of breakouts, "what does this have anything to do with the prophecy?"

"The prophecy speaks about how the power of Mary Sues is fading, and it states that one of you four is going to bring an end to it."

"You mean... one of us is going to kill every other Sue on the planet?" Amandor asked, apparently horror struck.

"Well, obviously it'll be me," I said reasonably. "I'm like, the main character!"

"Yeah, but you're too _nice!_" ViraTrixten snapped. "It'll be me."

"You!" I said with a laugh. "You aren't important enough! It might be Ebony. She'd happily shoot down anyone."

"Yeah, but she's... _Ebony." _ViraTrixten said. I shrugged. That was a valid point.

"Would you both shut up?" Amandor snapped. "This is serious!" I hesitated. Amandor sounded really, truly worried.

"Fine," I replied. "Actually, there's another thing I wanted to know."

"What's that?" Apollo asked cautiously.

"Why was Hera so nice to us? And how do we find the Ugly Mary Sue?"

"Oh, that first one's easy. What does Hera want, more than anything?" Realisation hit me.

"A perfect family," I murmured.

"That's right. Hera just loves perfect things. And as for the ugly Mary Sue," his face broke into a small smile, "where do you think someone as tragic as her would live?"

I hesitated for a second. An ugly Mary Sue would have to be incredibly tragic, she would have to live in a horrible place with horrible people, but she would be kind to them anyway out of the goodness of her own heart.

"Somewhere cut off from the rest of the world. Somewhere really awful. She would have to witness deaths like, five times a day..." I mumbled.

"I'm guessing that this is gonna take you hours to figure out, so can I leave now?" Apollo asked. He was twirling his car keys in his hand impatiently.

"Erm... I guess-"

"Excellent! Goodbye!" With another burst of light, Apollo disappeared into thin air. I could have sworn that I heard the _beep beep _of a car being unlocked just as the light faded away, and Apollo and car were gone.

"That was..."

"DID YOU HEAR WHAT HE SAID? BREAKOUTS! HESAIDTHATWEWOULDGETBREAKOUTS!" ViraTrixten shrieked.

"Don't panic! It's only if more Mary Sues..." I trailed off. We all knew that plenty more Mary Sues were going to turn up. There was no turning that around.

"What about the ugly Mary Sue? He didn't really tell us anything about that!"

"Perhaps she lives in the Labyrinth?" I suggested.

"There's a possibility...but surely she would have escaped by now?" Amandor said.

"Yeah, it needs to be a place where she would never have a chance to leave," ViraTrixten said.

"in da watre!" Ebony piped up.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Seh culdnt leef da watr!" Ebony insisted. I moved to exchange our customary expressions of disbelief with Amandor and ViraTrixten, but I found that they were both staring thoughtfully into space.

"Um... you guys aren't mocking her. Why aren't you mocking her?" I snapped.

"Because... Ebony is blessed with the ability to come up with the solution to any problem without putting any effort into it," ViraTrixten replied.

"Are you kidding me? She's got to have an IQ of like, one!"

"Her author is probably the stupidest person on this planet. She gave Ebony the gift to simply predict what was going to happen in the plot to save any effort."

"This still isn't making much sense to me," I snapped.

"It doesn't need to. It makes sense to _me." _ViraTrixten strode forward. "Ebony says that the Ugly Mary Sue must be on the water, and we know that she must be in an inescapable, awful place filled with death. Does anything spring to mind?"

I hesitated. I got the distinct sense that the painfully obvious answer was hanging right in front of me. I hated that. After a full five minutes of me staring intently into space, it finally clicked.

"The Sea of Monsters!" I cried.

"Finally!" ViraTrixten snapped. "Seriously? Could you get any more ignorant?"

There was a second of silence in which I glanced at my own reflection in a conveniently placed window, and then at Ebony.

"Erm... yes, I think I could," I said, staring at the goff as she re-applied her eyeliner.

"Okay, so all we need to do is steal a boat and sail to the Bermuda Triangle!" ViraTrixten exclaimed. "Then this whole mission is going to be-"

The sound of wailing police sirens cut her off abruptly.

"I wonder what they want?" Amandor muttered. I glanced around at the ruined museum, and remembered all of the screaming tourists running from the gunfight we had started. There was little doubt in my mind as to what the police wanted.

"Okay, change of plan. All we need to do is avoid the police at all costs, stay out of sight, steal a boat and sail to the Bermuda triangle," ViraTrixten announced. "_Then _this whole mission is going to be in the bag."


	21. Chapter 21

**Last week I forgot to mention that The Tale of Marie Susanne was featured on the website 'Choices of a Demigod.' Thank you, Lily of the Chosen! And thanks to everyone else for the nice comments! It's lovely to open my e-mail account to find my inbox flooded with comments, favourites and subscriptions****. **

As I hurried out of the sports equipment store with a baseball bat in my hand, cringing at the loud noise of the burglar alarms wailing, I couldn't help but wonder if Apollo had been right. Surely a proper, honest, good-hearted, kind, faithful Mary Sue would never steal anything? Was I less Sue-ish then what I had once been? Was I really becoming... ordinary?

"Good! You got it!" ViraTrixten cried, rushing over. She snatched the baseball bat away without a word of thanks.

"I found the perfect car!" she called over her shoulder as she hurried towards a nearby shopping centre.

"Wait... car?" I demanded, running to catch up. "I thought that we were going to use that baseball bat to smash the window of a boat, and then steal it!"

"We _are," _ViraTrixten said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "but you don't expect me to _walk _down to the dock, do you?"

She had a fair point. I followed ViraTrixten into a multi-storey car park, weaving through expensive cars of every colour. Finally, we came to a halt at a silver Mercedes. I snorted. I really shouldn't have expected anything different.

Ebony and Amandor were leaning casually against the car. Amandor looked up and nodded as I approached while Ebony stared vaguely into space.

"You stole the baseball bat?" he asked. I nodded.

"I feel like we really are turning into delinquents," I said. ViraTrixten sighed as she approached the window of the car.

"Marie, we became delinquents when we trashed your stepdad's house," she snapped. Expertly, she picked up the baseball bat and sent it swinging around directly into the car's window. Shattered glass flew through the air, and I shielded my face with my hands.

"We're going to be on the news again," Amandor said absently. ViraTrixten shrugged and stuck her hand through the shattered window, unlocking the door. I watched as she clambered inside.

"Who does this belong to, anyway?" I demanded.

"I don't know. Some person." ViraTrixten's indifference sent a jolt of anger through me, but as soon as it was there, it was gone.

"Get in," she called from the driver's seat. The passenger door swung open, and I hurried forward before Amandor got a chance to ride shotgun while I was left in the back seat with Ebony.

"So, to the nearest dock?" I asked.

"Yeah, and with the most expensive yachts," ViraTrixten said.

"Here's a map" Amandor called, throwing his find at the back of the head. I unfolded it and inspected the mass of squiggly lines.

"Okay, turn right when you reach..." I began.

"Well?" ViraTrixten snapped.

"Erm... just keep driving south. We'll probably end up somewhere around the beach."

"Great," ViraTrixten mumbled, and the car shot forward.

"Guys, the Bermuda Triangle is miles away," Amandor said from the back seat. "How are we supposed to get there?"

"On a boat. Duh."

"But it'll still take ages!"

"He has a point. Maybe we could steal a plane!"

"Erm, no," I said. "Bad idea. Zeus hates children of Poseidon, and he hates Mary Sues as well. What do you think he would do if we went flying through the sky?"

There was a short second of silence.

"Right. Ocean it is." Amandor's voice was firm. I leaned back in my seat as the car tore in a relatively southward direction.

"Hey, look! We're almost there!" ViraTrixten cried. I glanced up. Before us stretched the ocean- powerful blue waves crashed against the shore of a small beach as I watched.

"Great! Now to find a dock! With expensive yachts!" ViraTrixten cried eagerly. I bit my lip as she veered the car around and sped forward, keeping right next to the line of san don the beach.

"ViraTrixten, there's a-" I winced as the wheel of our car crushed some innocent baby animal.

"There! Up ahead!" Amandor cried. I flinched slightly as ViraTrixten's foot completely flattened itself against the ground and we sped towards the dock which was now in sight. Closer... closer... and disappearing behind us.

"ViraTrixten, what are you doing? There was a dock right back there!" Amandor cried.

"Um, hello? Did you guys see those ugly _things _there? I am not sailing some ancient train wreck across the North Atlantic Ocean! What if someone saw me?"

"ViraTrixten, we'd be in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. There would be no-one to see you."

"That's beside the point!"

I sighed and leaned back in my seat as ViraTrixten and Amandor began another round of their bickering. Perhaps I could strike up some weird, distorted form of conversation with Ebony.

"So, Ebony," I said casually, twisting around in my seat. "um... how are you going?"

"Gud" came the reply.

"Oh... well that's good."

"Yah."

I wanted to facepalm myself. I was having an awkward conversation... with _Ebony. _Things could officially not get any sadder.

"HOw r u?"

"Good, I guess. Are you excited to go sailing?"

"Yah, buyt i dunmo how 2 work a bote," she said sadly. I raised my eyebrows.

"Don't worry, we wouldn't let you steer, even if you did live under some strange delusion that you can operate a boat," I said in my best comforting voice. Ebony seemed to notice the insult, because she gave me her signature goffik glare.

"Wel ate lest im not a pedo," she snapped. I frowned in confusion.

"Ebony, I'm a teenager. I'm not a creepy fifty-year-old man you met on the internet. Is it even possible for me to-"

"Yah! Nd u r 1."

"Okay... well... um... I like your...makeup today," I began. I was just about to compliment her on her ripped fishnet stockings when ViraTrixten cut across me.

"I hate to interrupt your conversation of paedophilia and ugly goffik makeup and whatever in Hades else, but I think I've found our ride."

I turned to peer out of the window just as the car screeched to a halt. Then I saw what ViraTrixten was pointing at.

My jaw dropped. My eyes widened so much that they were in danger of falling out. From the spluttering noises I heard from the back, I was assuming that Amandor was choking on his own tongue.

"ViraTrixten... you can_not..._" I choked, "be serious."

"Isn't it great?" ViraTrixten said happily. I didn't say anything, because while I couldn't exactly agree, I wasn't able to disagree either.

I had been expecting a yacht. Something shiny, silver and pretty. Something huge, luxury, and belonging to a billionaire. Something which would be virtually impossible to steal. That would have been practical- at least by ViraTrixten's standards. I could have lived with that.

But a bloody _luxury cruise ship?_ She was insane! _Huge _wasn't the right word to describe this. Humungous, colossal- completely, utterly impractical... those words pretty much summed the whole thing up. I could have fit an entire suburb inside it.

"Okay, it looks to me like all of the rich passengers have left to go explore the city. So that means that we only need to deal with the crew," ViraTrixten said.

"You're crazy," I said faintly.

"They should be easy enough to handle," she continued, blissfully unaware of our shock. "If we can take out one guard and grab his stun gun, then all of the others will be unconscious before they have time to blink."

"Are you completely _insane?" _Amandor snarled. "You want to steal a cruise ship?"

"Yes," she said stubbornly. "It's perfect! Just do as I say and it'll be fine!"

I shook my head. ViraTrixten's idea was insane. Ludicrous. Absolutely impossible.

"No," I snapped. "There is no way that any of us will ever go along with your crazy, delusional plan! Nothing can make us!"

TEN MINUTES LATER.

"I don't believe this," Amandor muttered as ViraTrixten strode out of a public bathroom wearing a low-cut, close fitting top combined with a short black skirt. Expensive Italian boots clicked onthe ground as she walked, and a Coco Chanel handbag dangled from her arm.

"Do I look rich and spoiled enough?" she asked.

"You didn't need the costume for that," I muttered. Amandor grinned his appreciation.

"Great. So, I distract that one guard, and then you guys get inside and take out all of the other crew members. Got it? We'll meet in the captain's quarters once we're all sure that there are no other people on this boat. "

"This is a stupid plan!" I cried.

"_Your _plan was stupid. Mine is brilliant. Now let's move!"

ViraTrixten strutted towards the ship. I watched as she made her way up, along the jetty and finally came to a stop at the entrance to the boat, where a guard was standing to attention. Amandor, Ebony and I all hurried forward, ducking between and around random objects in order to stay out of sight.

"Excuse me sir," I heard ViraTrixten say. I could practically sense her eyelashes batting. "I'm afraid I left my purse on the ship. Would you mind if I went and got it?"

"Of course not, ma'am. Could I please see your ticket first, please?"

"Oh, of course! How silly of me! Let me just get it." ViraTrixten began digging around her Chanel bag while the guard leaned over her.

"Now!" I hissed, and together Amandor, Ebony and I rushed forward and past the guard's turned back. It was inevitable that he would eventually see us, but we were trying to hold off that moment until we were actually inside the ship. Sure enough, we heard a shout from behind us.

"Hey! What-" his voice was cut off by a grotesque gurgle. I didn't turn around, not really wanting to know what ViraTrixten had done to him.

"This way!" Amandor cried. We spun around a corner and were instantly met with another guard. He rushed towards us, and Amandor hurried forward to meet him.

_Crack._

I winced at the noise made by Amandor's knee hitting the poor guard's groin. That wasn't something that was going to leave the guy willing to keep his job.

"We need to get to the captain's quarters!" I shouted. "If we can call all of the crew up there, then we can take them all out at once!"

"Good plan!" Amandor yelled, and ran down another passageway. It reminded me of being back in the Labyrinth, running through all of these twisting hallways. Amandor seemed to know where he was going, so I followed him without hesitation.

The trip to the captain's quarters was quick and (reasonably) uneventful. We maimed eight crew members, knocked twenty unconscious and might've killed one.

"Here we are!" Amandor cried as we reached a set of double doors.

"Okay, so when we go in there, we just throw them all overboard?" I asked.

"Pretty much."

"I still can't believe we're doing this."

"Me neither."

"You guys ready?"

Amandor nodded, clutched his stun gun (which he had taken from victim number 3) and swung the door open. I lunged forward, ready to take on some sailors.

"Hey, everybody!"

I gaped in disbelief. Sitting in the captain's chair was ViraTrixten. She was smiling happily, and, to add to the image, had placed a sailor's cap on her head.

"ViraTrixten?" Amandor said.

"Sure am!" ViraTrixten said with a wide smile. I had never seen her look so happy. "Did you see the pool? And the luxury suite? This is going to be great! But first we need to get rid of all those pesky crew members."

ViraTrixten reached across the desk and produced a microphone. She smiled at us broadly before hitting a button and speaking loudly and clearly into the mike.

"Attention, everyone! Could _all _crew members please make their way to the main deck? We have an urgent matter to attend to!"

ViraTrixten smiled once more and switched off her microphone.

"You guys might want to bring some weapons. This is going to be fun!"


	22. Chapter 22

**Happy Halloween everyone! A kid just turned up at my doorstep dressed as a banana. Confused? Me too. And my poor black cat is also getting chased by any kid who sees him. Don't you just love Halloween? **

The waves lapped against the side of the huge metal ship as it sliced through the water. Below, I could see dolphins playing in the waves created by the ship. I couldn't help but smile as the smell of the ocean blew through the air and my hair was whipped around my head by the breeze. This was definitely the way to travel.

We had been at sea for three days, and it had probably been the best part of the whole journey. Not just because of the gourmet food or because of the humungous souvenir shop which was the size of a mall. The luxury suites didn't even have anything to do with it. It was the fact that we finally didn't have _anything _to do. We didn't have any monsters to defeat. All we needed to do was sit back, relax and try not to get our hair wet. Steering wasn't even a problem. It turned out that I had some kind of weird control over ships, and I could make this thing do whatever the Hades I wanted it to.

"Attention, everyone!" I jumped as the speaker nearby me suddenly burst to life, broadcasting ViraTrixten's voice across the entire ship.

"An entire room filled with expensive designer items has been discovered. Repeat, an entire room. Come and take your pick! They are located in suite thirteen."

I jumped up and rushed towards the nearest door. Over the past three days, I had gotten to know the general layout of the ship fairly well. Suite number thirteen was one of the most luxury rooms on the entire ship, and so it would be located right above the pool. I rushed through the various pathways, wondering to myself whether or not ViraTrixten was contagious. Designer items didn't matter that much. It wasn't like we were going to be able to take them with us everywhere.

But still... they were _designer. _

"Are there any Chanel dresses?" I demanded as I burst through the door.

"Five," ViraTrixten said. I hesitated for a second. ViraTrixten sounded blissfully happy. Her voice came out as a breathy squeak, which was scary in itself. I turned to see her lying across a couch, surrounded by her new items.

_Happy _wouldn't be the right word to describe ViraTrixten's behaviour over the last couple of days. Ecstatic, maybe. Nothing could have cured her nasty attitude more quickly than a cruise ship which was stuffed to the brim with designer items.

"Hey guys" Amandor said as he strode into the room.

"What are you doing here? Don't tell me you're a cross-dresser, Amandor," ViraTrixten said as she tried on a pink-sapphire necklace.

"No, but I could use some stuff anyway. Girls adore guys who give away designer items. I actually came to talk strategy."

ViraTrixten groaned.

"Amandor! We're on a cruise ship, having the time of our lives. We don't need someone to mother us."

"Yes, we do. How far away are we from the Sea of Monsters, Marie?"

"We're making really good time. I'd say that another few days will get us there."

"Wait, what? Just a few days?"

"It's a Mary Sue story, Amandor. Do you really think that the author is going to waste time on this ship for any longer?"

Amandor shrugged, getting my point.

"So, where should we look first?"

"Circe's island, maybe? The Ugly Mary Sue could be some kind of ultra-powerful witch."

"Perhaps she's been imprisoned by some Cyclops."

I frowned, considering both ViraTrixten and Amandor's suggestions.

"I don't think she would be on Circe's island. That place is like, a luxury spa. It's not tragic enough. A Cyclops' lair..." I paused, frowning.

"That makes the most sense, I guess," Amandor reasoned. I shrugged.

"Okay, we'll look around there first," ViraTrixten declared. "Then we can search the rest of the place until we find her."

"The Sea of Monsters is huge. It could take months."

"Stop being so logical! Nothing in this world makes any sense, Amandor."

I sighed at the prospect of another argument between ViraTrixten and Amandor. With a yawn, I stood up and gathered my new designer items around me.

"I'm going for a swim. If you guys need me, just use a megaphone or something."

No-one objected, and I walked over to the door and swung it open. I hurried to my own suite, where I dumped all of my new stuff in my bedroom and quickly got changed into a white Armani bikini. I made my way through the hallways towards the huge, kidney-shaped pool. Slipping into the crystal-clear water, I gave another huge yawn. For some reason, I was suddenly exhausted. The water lapped around me as I absentmindedly floated on the surface, while the sun beat down on my face. It was so peaceful here. There wasn't a sound, except for the gentle splashing of the water and the waves slapping against the boat. The sun was so warm on my face, and my lips curved into a smile as the cool water continued to lap around me...

_She shuddered as the sound of screaming filled the air, along with the sickening sound of cracking bones. Unable to bear it any more, she leapt to her feet. Tears streamed down her face as she ran towards the source of the noise. She knew that to run at it, to disobey it in any way, would result in yet another round of torture, yet another threat upon her life. But she simply didn't care anymore. Her life was nothing, nothing more than a never-ending stretch of agony. She didn't want it anymore. As her bare feet hit the sharp rocks, she cried out in pain. Not in pain for her bleeding feet, but the pain of seeing yet another life taken by a monster. She gasped, horrified, as the man fell to the ground, dead. _

"_You monster!" she screamed. She was met with a sharp blow across the face, and she stumbled backwards. She could fight. Oh, she could try to fight, and she would win. But it would be useless. It would be reborn instantly, more furious than ever. She watched as the growling creature walked away. She sank to her knees, woefully stroking the dead man's ruined face. _

"_Oh, woe is me!" she cried to the heavens. "Why must I be trapped here, in this evil land of evilness? Bitter and evil, are the ones who imprison me. They are nothing more than sick, twisted, evil, deadly, horrible, disgusting, ruthless, evil, merciless, heartless, soulless, demonic, monstrous creatures of the blackest of black nights! Why must it be me who is trapped here? Why must I be the one who is forced to live in this shadowy pit of shadows and darkness?"_

_Of course, she already knew why. She knew all. She knew all, and she could change it all. But it was her fate, her destiny, to stay here. To be imprisoned in this prison. She left the dead man, and walked over to a pool of water, where she stared at her reflection._

_Hideous. She knew she was hideous, of course. She did not care for looks. They were pointless. Her appearance would never let her escape this island. Nothing would. It did not matter how much planning she put into it, how much power she used. For no matter how fast she ran, she would always be called back. _

The dream shifted. Now I was back at Camp Half Blood, watching as Annabeth, Percy and Nico all wandered through the woods.

"So, do you think this Prophecy will work in our favour?" Percy asked.

"It looks like it,"Annabeth replied.

"Who made it, anyway?"

"I don't know. Apollo wouldn't tell Rachel."

"Great. That's great."

Nico opened his mouth to speak, and I leaned forward eagerly.

"Marie! Marie!" For a split second, my heart leapt. He was calling my name! And then I realised it wasn't Nico's voice.

"Marie!" Amandor cried once more. I sat bolt upright, shivering. I was soaking wet, lying next to the edge of the pool.

"What?" I demanded, more than a little irritated that I hadn't even gotten a chance to hear Nico's voice.

"You were lying at the bottom of the pool, fast asleep," ViraTrixten said dryly.

"Oh," I muttered.

"Lucky you can breathe underwater. Otherwise that would have been a serious damper on this whole cruise ship thing-"

"I think I just had a vision about the Ugly Mary Sue," I said quietly. There was a second of shocked silence.

"Where is she?" ViraTrixten demanded eagerly.

"She's... on an island. With... rocks. There are rocks on the ground. And a monster."

"She's on an island with rocks and a monster," Amandor said coolly.

"Hey, I can't control what I see in my visions. The Ugly Mary Sue... she's depressed. Really depressed. And powerful. But for some reason, she can't escape."

"So... basically she's smarter, more powerful Ebony?" ViraTrixten asked.

"That about sums it up."

"Great. Just what we need."

"Hang on... speaking of Ebony, where is she? I haven't seen her all day." It was touching that Amandor had actually acknowledged Ebony's existence. Usually he just grimaced and feigned deafness every time she opened her mouth.

"She probably found a mud bath, mistook it for black lipstick, jumped in and drowned," ViraTrixten said hopefully.

"Come on," I said, getting to my feet. "There are crazy kidnappers after her, remember? We should just see if she's okay."

We all wandered inside, opening doors and yelling Ebony's name.

"Ebony! I found a Hot Topic!" I called.

"You didn't happen to have any convenient visions about Ebony's stalkers, did you?" Amandor asked me. I shook my head.

"They're probably just doctors," ViraTrixten said.

"Doctors?"

"Yeah. Come to rid Ebony of stupid."

I snorted, and resumed my inspection of the bathrooms.

"Why don't we just use the loudspeaker?" Amandor suddenly asked. ViraTrixten smacked her palm against her forehead.

"Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" she cried, before running off down some distant passageway.

"So, did you dream about anything else?" Amandor asked.

"I saw Percy, and Annabeth and Nico," I said. "They don't seem to know anything about the Prophecy, though."

"Really? I would've thought that they'd know everything."

"Guess not."

"WOULD EBONY DARK'NESS DEMENTIA RAVEN WAY PLEASE COME TO HER ROOM?" the nearest loudspeaker suddenly barked. "WE HAVE FOUND... HOT TOPIC! REPEAT, HOT TOPIC IS IN YOUR ROOM!"

"If that doesn't work, nothing will," I said. Beside me, Amandor nodded. We both turned and hurried towards the Ebony's room.

The door swung inward, and I surveyed the scene before me. The luxury bed had been pushed aside to make way for a huge black coffin. Goffik clothes covered the floor, and the dresser was hidden by a layer of bottles- white foundation, black mascara, black eye shadow, black eyeliner, purple and red hair dye and black nail polish. Wow. If Ebony had saved her money rather than spend it all on make-up, she would be a billionaire.

"Is she here yet?" ViraTrixten demanded as she stalked into the room. I shook my head, and she sighed.

"Oh well. I guess she fell overboard and we'll never see her again. That's too bad. Does anyone want to come to the games arcade with me?" Without waiting for an answer, she ran off. I frowned after her.

"Don't worry," Amandor said. "She'll turn up sooner or later." He, too, left the room. I glared at the door. Didn't they care about Ebony at all?

Probably not. She was annoying and useless. But that was beside the point. Surely they could show a little bit of sympathy?

I cast a glance out of the porthole and over the sea. I felt so much more powerful here. I really did like this ship. Being at sea just felt good.

As I stared at the blue waves, a distant memory was triggered. The words of the Prophecy suddenly came back to me- the words I had come so close to forgetting.

_Four shall get to leave this camp,_

_The random new character, the main character, the other guy, and the goff who is a vamp,_

_They shall search for the Ugly Mary Sue,_

_They shall travel by boat in the ocean blue. _

_One will die a dramatic death,_

_One will successfully send everyone deaf,_

_The other two don't matter much right now,_

_So now I will go and ride a cow._

I continued to stare at the ocean in front of me. _One will die a dramatic death._

I hadn't really thought of that line much until now.


	23. Chapter 23

**Hey everyone, so sorry that I had to skip for so long ****. I'm going to try and publish a minimum of two chapters a week now as my assessment has all ended (yay!). Anyway, my friend went to see Harry Potter 7 part one, and e-mailed me afterwards in the midst of a fit of happiness. Why? Because, when Ron was listening to the radio and a list of missing people came up, whose name should be mentioned? Ebony's! Oh, the irony! **

I gave a yawn as I stared blankly at the clouds. I was, in a word, bored. Even luxury cruise ships can lose their shine after a while. We'd gone almost five days without seeing anything, and I mean _anything_. The dolphins had left long ago. Even the seaweed seemed to be lacking out here. We were just a single ship, idling along in a never-ending expanse of blue. ViraTrixten had hoarded every designer item on the ship. So very, very boring. There was only one real point of interest for me, and even that was growing more and more dull by the second.

Ebony.

I sighed. It had to be the most frustrating mystery I'd faced. She couldn't have just... died. The prophecy had specifically said that she would have to die a _dramatic _death. There had been no shrieks of pain, no smears of dried blood anywhere, no... nothing. That was hardly dramatic. That was just plain stupid.

"Hey, Marie," ViraTrixten said. I looked up and almost had a seizure, choking on my own spit. After a few minutes of me coughing, retching and gagging (not to mention ViraTrixten staring at me in revulsion) I plastered a blank expression on my face and turned to meet her eyes.

ViraTrixten looked ridiculous. It seemed as though she was trying to see how many fashion labels she could cram onto her body. About fifteen different watches covered her left arm, not to mention the five rings on each finger and the fifty-bazillion bracelets. Seventeen necklaces hung from her neck. It looked as though Hephaestus had thrown up all over her hair, because all of those metallic accessories were hurting my eyes. Her shoes had eight-inch heels (is that even possible?) and she seemed to have mashed up three different designer shirts before proudly reforming them into one jacket.

"What?" ViraTrixten demanded as she read my expression. I bit back a grin.

"Nothing, nothing. So, what do you want?"

"We're going to be at the Sea of Monsters soon. Do you want to opt for the clashing rocks, the whirlpool-creating monster or that thing with lots of heads?"

"You mean Scylla?"

"Sure. Why not."

I hesitated, biting my lip. It was a tricky question. Sort of like those dumb ones where people ask _'would you rather be dropped in a lake of lava, drowned or be sucked into a black hole?_ Stupid questions. Ones that don't make any sense.

"Um... how 'bout the clashing rocks?" I asked. "The other two monsters have sort of been done before."

"True. Okay, so we'll be there in around a day."

I nodded and lay back in my deck chair by the pool. It sure was lucky that I couldn't sunburn, or otherwise I would probably be developing skin cancer at this very second. Oh, how I pitied the ordinary humans who had to pile on mountains of sunblock just to go to the beach.

"Oh, and I found some of those drachmas," ViraTrixten called over her shoulder. "We were going to try and send an Iris-message to camp."

I sat bolt upright, before leaping out of my seat like I had been electrocuted. We could contact camp? That meant that I would be able to talk to Nico again! I was sure that everyone would be desperate with worry for us, and that Nico would have been pining after me. I hoped that he hadn't been obsessing over me or anything.

"Wait for me!" I cried frantically as I hurried after ViraTrixten. We headed up to the main deck, in which there was a fairly impressive fountain. It would be perfect for Iris-messaging.

"Hey guys!" Amandor called as he strolled over. ViraTrixten ignored him while I gave him a small wave. He sat down on the nearest deck chair and yawned.

"Still no sign of Ebony," he said. "I really think she just... disappeared."

"She can't be dead," I snapped, momentarily distracted. "There's no way she's dead."

"The prophecy predicted _someone's _death," ViraTrixten said.

"Yeah, but it was supposed to be _dramatic," _I insisted, waving my hands for emphasis. It must have looked pretty weird, because ViraTrixten gave me her signature 'you are a loser and I am cool' look before she spoke.

"Anyway... let's Iris-message Chiron!" she said, throwing her gold coin into the fountain and simultaneously incinerating any conversation regarding Ebony. "Hey Iris, I wanna tlk 2 chiron, iz dat ok?" she said. Nothing happened.

"Why did you just speak like Ebony?" Amandor asked.

"What? Iris Messages are just like text messages, except all... Greeky. It makes sense to talk to her in txt tlk."

"Not really," Amandor said. He stepped forward.

"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept our offering, and I'm sorry about my friend's rudeness. Would you mind showing us Chiron?" he said, using his typical flirting tone.

"Tell me you were not just hitting on a goddess," ViraTrixten snapped. "That's like, totally gross! She's your extended family!"

"What, it's not like your technique was any more-"

"Shut up!" I said eagerly. An image was swimming in front of us, an image which was gradually becoming more and more clear...

"It's Camp Half-Blood!" ViraTrixten cried. I rushed forward. I was going to see Nico again! I was going to-

"AARGH!" I heard several people shriek. I looked over the image in front of me, but nothing seemed to be wrong. Everyone was sitting around the campfire, singing tunes. It was night-time over there, which didn't really make much sense, but hey. Nothing in my world made any sense. The campfire, which reflected the mood of the campers, had moved from a bright purple to black within seconds.

"Hi guys!" ViraTrixten said happily. "It's us!"

There was silence on the other end. We got a whole lot of dirty looks from the Ares kids.

Chiron's tail flicked uneasily as he stepped forward"Marie! Amandor! Vira..."

"ViraTrixten," she said cheerfully.

"Erm... yes. What a... nice surprise! We had assumed that you were dead!"

"Well, we aren't! We're nearly at the Sea of Monsters!"

"Why would you want to go there?" Chiron asked, a little too quickly. I raised my eyebrows.

"We think that's where the ugly Mary Sue is," I said. "Well, technically, we _know. _But there's something else. Ebony's gone missing."

The other line of the Iris-message immediately erupted into ecstatic cheering. The campers all leapt out of their seats, hugged each other, danced around the campfire and jumped for joy. I scowled at them. Chiron, at least, had the decency to _try _and keep a straight face. It didn't work, of course, but the thought was nice.

"Missing, you say?"

"Yes. We think that... well, there was this group of people who kidnapped her... and they tried to, you know, kill her, so we think that it could have been them who abducted her."

"That's fascinating. Um... so do you need any assistance? Any help at all?"

"Well, all I really want to know is who these people who kidnapped Ebony are," Amandor said. "They might come back for the rest of us."

"Yes. And that would be... awful."

"Well, they could be the-" his voice was suddenly cut off as a sword, flung across the room by an overexcited camper, severed the connection. I watched helplessly as the message seemed to crack, before shattering to pieces.

"ARGH!" ViraTrixten screamed at the sky. "WHY DID THAT JUST HAPPEN? WHY ON _EARTH _WOULD YOU WANT TO ADD ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER TO THE PLOT?"

"Calm down," Amandor said, though he sounded pretty annoyed himself. It'll be fine. Let's just get some sleep."

I wasn't tired, of course. None of us were, but sleeping did help to pass time. I walked over to a random deck chair (there sure were a hell of a lot of deck chairs on this ship) and flopped down upon it. Before I knew it, I was asleep.

**Now it's time for... random dream/creepy vision time! **

"_HLP!' i yielded. "PLZ!" i banged da wall. I wuz werin a ledder black mini wiff blak lace all ova it n a red corset top dat showd of how pale i wuz. My hair was all strait n i had put more purple streekz in it. I wuz werin black lace up boots._

_HLP' I yielded agan. Were wuz mary? n Amanda?n Vitariztein? I hit da wall but no1 came. Den...I stoppd n listened. I gasped...sum1 wuz cumin!_

**TRANSITION!**

_I sighed as I gazed over the ever-rolling ocean. Then I sighed again, a bit more loudly. Then I gave another sigh. _

"_Oh, what beautiful stars!" I cried into the blackness of the black inky night. Of course, there was no-one there to hear me. No-one to answer to my desperate, pleading, desperately tragic calls for help. The Gods did not care enough for me to try and help me. I was too dangerous to them. I knew too much. However, I forgave them for their horrible awfulness, their ruthless nastiness... I truly forgave them, for if I could not forgive, I could not love, and if I could not love, I could not hope, and if I could not hope, than I could never feel a sense of joy or happiness at all, because my life was so truly miserable. My very existence was a misery. A miserable existence of misery._

"_Oh, it is so beautiful!" I cried once more at the sky. "The only beauty I have ever, and I fear will ever, have the fortune to see. Oh gods of Olympus, have I not suffered enough? Have I not an awful enough existence? Do you remain unsatisfied, and believe that I should suffer more? What have I ever done?"_

_The night remained as silent as ever. I stifled a sob, and did the only thing I could._

_I sighed._

CRASH.

I scrambled awake, shaking my head in exhaustion. Geez, that Sue sure knew how to complain. I glanced around frantically. It was already dark, and I could hardly see a thing.

CRASH.

"ViraTrixten!" I cried. "Amandor!"

CRASH.

I heard a shout from somewhere to my right. I turned just as someone came barrelling into me.

"Marie?" I heard Amandor shout.

"Amandor!" I cried. "Where's ViraTrixten?"

"She's up at the steering wheel! We're at the clashing rocks!"

I groaned. Of course. The stupid clashing rocks. I should have guessed it. Just as I was about to let loose with a tragic sigh, the lights all came on.

"Come on!" Amandor cried. "We need to get the ViraTrixten!"

We ran through the ship, not once stopping. The crashes seemed to get louder and louder with every passing minute. Finally, we burst through a set of doors.

"ViraTrixten!" I cried. "What's the plan? How are we going to get past these rocks?"

"Um..." she mumbled. "How did that one guy from the myth do it?"

We both stared at her blankly.

"Okay... we don't know. Looks like we'll have to rely upon the power of improvisation."

"Well then, what's your power of improvisation telling you?" I demanded. ViraTrixten paused and inclined her head to the side for several minutes.

"Running out of time here!" Amandor yelled.

"My powers of improvisation... hmmm. They're telling me to bomb the crap out of stuff!" ViraTrixten cried cheerfully.

"Three minutes of deep thought and _that's _what you come up with?" I cried, aghast.

"Hey, don't act like you've got a better solution, sugarcakes. Go prepare the cannons!"

"ViraTrixten," Amandor pointed out drily, "this is a cruise ship. We don't _have _any cannons."

"Then find some dynamite and let's get to work on these stupid rocks!"

I sighed and exchanged sceptical looks with Amandor. ViraTrixten looked literally crazy, with her designer clothes, her crazy hair, and the slightly unhinged expression she was wearing.

"Well... we don't have any better ideas," Amandor said. I nodded in agreement, resigning myself to obey orders given by a crazy Mary Sue.


	24. Chapter 24

**Grrr, I posted it a day late. Sorry. That's... pretty much all I have to say. I made this chapter a bit longer than usual.**

_Crash._

"I HATE YOU, VIRATRIXTEN!" Amandor yelled furiously.

"How was I supposed to know that there weren't any bombs on this ship?" ViraTrixten demanded as we edged ever closer to the great rocks.

"BECAUSE IT WAS OBVIOUS!" he yelled back. I yawned as I watched the two exchange insults. I might have been worried, but being at sea made me feel so... _confident. _I felt certain that everything would work out just fine. Despite the fact that we were moving right towards a certain doom.

"Okay, everyone just calm down," I said. "Amandor, you can yell at her later. ViraTrixten... well, you're an idiot."

She scowled at me.

"Great. So... can you use your super sea powers to just... speed us through?"

I hesitated, raising my arm experimentally. I imagined the waves picking up, speeding us through. I tried to think of hundreds of cubic metres of water, all at my command. A slight tugging sensation grew in my gut as I raised my arm higher.

"More!" ViraTrixten commanded somewhere to my right.

_More,_ I repeated in my mind. The tugging sensation was almost painful now and- was that sea salt splashing my face?

I opened my eyes, and gasped in shock. The cruise ship- the gigantic cruise ship- had lifted up at the front like a speedboat. It rushed forward at a frightening speed, and I knew we had a matter of seconds before we reached the rocks.

"Wait!" Amandor cried. "Wait for an opening! We need to go through at just the right time!"

I threw him a panicked look. I couldn't wait! I didn't know how!

"MARIE!" ViraTrixten shrieked. "STOP! NOW! BEFORE WE ALL DIE LONG, SLOW, PAINFUL DEATHS!"

A loud _thunk _echoed from somewhere in the engine room. I looked around frantically like a wild animal caught in a trap. Something was happening to the engine- the water pushing the ship towards a death trap was also overwhelming the inner works.

"Marie, STOP!" Amandor yelled frantically. But I couldn't stop. The pain in my stomach was overwhelming, and I would have collapsed had I not been rooted to the spot.

_Crash._

"GET TO A LIFE BOAT!" ViraTrixten screamed, already running towards one. I felt Amandor grab me and I was half dragged to a lifeboat. The rocks were only one hundred metres away, and getting closer by the second.

"Okay, don't panic, don't panic," ViraTrixten was repeating over and over.

"We're about to hit them!" Amandor shouted.

"MARIE, TURN OFF THE BLOODY WAVE FUNCTION!" ViraTrixten shrieked hysterically. So much for not panicking.

_Slow down _I begged with my mind- and incredibly, the pain in my gut subsided. I smiled triumphantly. I had done it!

"Oh my gods..." ViraTrixten chocked. I turned to see her pale, shaken face staring at something to the right. I followed her gaze, and chocked back a shriek. We hadn't made it. We were floating directly in between the clashing rocks. And there, pressed against the face of each great cliff, were hundreds- no, _thousands_, of pieces of metal, wood... any material that could be used to make a boat. For one eerie second, all the three of us could do was sit and stare in disbelief at the damage.

_Crash. _

Everything went black.

_She sobbed as she saw the poor, innocent mortal being devoured. He was so innocent. She allowed the tears to trickle slowly down her face as his bones were discarded on the ground. The monster snarled at her before moving back to the shore. She sighed as she gazed at the empty blue sky. Oh cruel, cruel fate. It was so cruel and fateful. She sighed again as she moved to the water's edge. The sharp rocks cut at her feet, but she had other, greater wounds over which to sob. She stared at her reflection in the water, taking in her hideous face of depressing ugliness. _

"_Oh, woe is me!" she cried. "Woe is me!"_

Uuuungh.

Ouch.

My head hurt.

The stupid sunlight streamed through my eyelids. I moaned as I looked up. My entire body was swollen, and I was definitely cut in some places. I felt like a giant bruise.

"I hate my life," I moaned, rolling over. The ground was covered in sharp rocks which had become unbearably hot, thanks to the sun. Unfortunately, this meant that my rolling over was about as comfortable as riding an echidna.

"Mmmmph," I groaned. Why did the stupid ground have to be so hot?

Wait a second. The _ground?_

"Holy mother of Zeus!" I shrieked, sitting bolt upright. Just then, the ground began to shudder. It moved violently to the side for a split second, and to the east I heard an almighty _crash. _The ground then slid back to its original position.

I gazed around wearily. This place was nothing more than a barren island. There was no sign of life anywhere. It didn't really count as an island, either. More like one huge, ugly rock.

Wait, one huge ugly rock? One that moves?

"I HATE THIS WORLD AND EVERYONE IN IT!" I yelled at the sky.

I was on a bloody _clashing rock. _I must have somehow been tossed onto one of them at the last second. Perhaps ViraTrixten or Amandor had used their super demigod powers to-

Wait. Where were ViraTrixten and Amandor? Had they been squished? No way was I doing this alone!

"HELLO!" I shrieked. No-one answered. I stood up and bitterly kicked at the ground. Perhaps the Ugly Mary Sue was here. In my dreams, her home looked a little like this. But then, that would make my life easy.

"IS ANYONE THERE?" I shouted. "PREFERABLY ALIVE?"

I wandered down the sloping rock. I would much rather trudge downhill than uphill, and besides, neither ViraTrixten nor Amandor had _my _physique. They weighed like, five more kilograms than me, so naturally they would roll further down the hill.

"Hello?" I called again desperately. I sighed, and glanced over the craggy terrain. I couldn't see anything that remotely resembled a human being. I sighed and began making my way over to a nearby boulder. It would provide a little bit of shade, at least.

As I got closer, I noticed that the boulder had a really weird shape. Was that an arm? And vivid red hair...

"VirsTrixten!" I cried. The figure didn't move. I rushed forward.

"ViraTrixten! Are you okay?" she was lying unconscious on the ground, her designer clothes torn to shreds. Her hair was one big knot. In short, ViraTrixten looked like exactly the kind of girl that she would make fun of.

"Mmmph... Vuitton..."

I breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe! And if her subconscious murmurings were a good enough indication, then her brain must not have been affected either.

"ViraTrixten, wake up!"

"Shkeeleglmpa."

I sighed. Great. Just what I needed. I stared helplessly around. This rock was pretty bloody huge, about the size of a small farming town. There was no way I was dragging ViraTrixten across it.

Unless... I focused on a lump of wood lying on the ground. I frowned, and moved forward to inspect it. It was made of regular old timber, and it had been burned around the edges. I smiled, a glimmer of hope suddenly appearing before my eyes. This wood could be part of our life boat! And life boats generally had horribly cheap supply packs!

It wasn't much to go on, but it gave me something to do. I looked around, and spotted another lump of wood. Glancing back at ViraTrixten, I figured she wasn't going anywhere.

I followed the trail of debris until the rock ended at a sheer, jagged cliff face. There, threatening to topple over the edge, was a ruined lifeboat. And rummaging around in the lifeboat was...

"Amandor!" I cried. "This is great! It's so much more convenient now!"

"Marie?" he demanded. "You didn't die?"

"No, and neither did ViraTrixten," I panted as I ran up to him. "She's unconscious."

"Where?"

I gestured vaguely to the right. Amandor nodded once, all business.

"I'll go get her. There's a tent and some awful dried food in here. Try to set everything up, and scavenge everything you can find." Without another word, he ran off. I rolled my eyes at our brief reunion before I began hunting through the wreckage of the lifeboat. Amandor had already set aside a tin of some awful-smelling food, a tent rolled up into a tight ball, and some life vests. I yawned, and began to set up the tent, ignoring the frequent shudders as the rocks clashed over and over again. Thankfully, the instructions had been saved, and so it wasn't too much of a problem. The tent was quite small, but it would be enough to provide us with some shelter. I bit my lip and examined my surroundings. What would Bear Grills do? A memory of the British accent drifted through my mind.

'_Now, when you're out in the woods, one of your most important tools is fire. It keeps you warm, provides you with light, and it keeps those deadly creatures of the night away.'_

Excellent. I knew that watching useless survival television would come in handy one day. I expertly began to hack the lifeboat to pieces, creating a nice campfire. As I was wreaking my wave of destruction, I came across another badly damaged tent (I set it up anyway) some sleeping bags, a medical kit and a radio. The radio wouldn't really do much good- it would only attract a bunch of monsters which would kill us before any help could reach us. The medical kit could come in handy, though. I bandaged a few of the worse wounds on my arms and legs, and rubbed ointment on my bruises. I was just about to figure out how to actually light my fire when I heard a yell.

"WHY ARE YOU SO HEAVY?"

I sighed. That was definitely Amandor. Reluctantly, I stood up and hurried towards the source of the noise. Amandor was dragging a still unconscious ViraTrixten across the ground.

"Amandor, she's a Mary Sue. She's like, anorexic," I snapped. He glared at me.

"Then how come she weighs so much?" he demanded. I frowned and walked forward. ViraTrixten looked as stick-thin as ever. Then I slowly took in her tacky gold jewellery, the billions of watches...

"Get her jewellery off," I said. "It's probably making her like, twice as heavy."

After stripping poor ViraTrixten of all of her favourite things, we dragged her all the way back to the campsite.

"You got the tents pitched?" Amandor asked.

"Yeah. I found a medical kit too," I said, examining his wounds. I hadn't really noticed before, but Amandor and ViraTrixten both looked terrible. They had huge gashes covering every inch of them, not to mention the ugly yellow-and-purple bruises. We had all been lying in the dirt, and if I wasn't mistaken, it seemed that one of Amandor's cuts was already infected.

"I couldn't light the fire, though," I said, trying to take my mind off of the yellow pus oozing out of the cut in his cheek.

"Not a problem," he said confidently. "Start rubbing a couple of sticks together." I glared at him. I was _not _using a caveman technique.

"Trust me, I'll be really quick. The sooner that fire gets going, the sooner we can wake ViraTrixten up."

I reluctantly obliged, rubbing two pieces of lifeboat against each other. Amandor propped ViraTrixten up against the side of the lifeboat wreckage, and fished around in his pockets. I raised my eyebrows as he produced a lethal-looking earring of ViraTrixten's. It was a diamond, cut into the shape of a star. The edges of the star were incredibly sharp, and it looked positively lethal.

"Is that working?" he asked me as I continued rubbing the two sticks together. I shrugged.

"I've seen a couple of sparks, but they're tiny," I complained.

Amandor nodded once, and raised the earring of doom. Then, in one quick, swift motion, he cut a chunk of ViraTrixten's hair off.

"AMANDOR!" I shrieked, aghast, and he held the lump of hair out triumphantly. The smell of hairspray filled my nostrils.

"I always told ViraTrixten that she was a walking fire hazard with all that hairspray," he said with a fake sigh. I smiled in spite of myself. Amandor held out the hair and pressed it against the two sticks. After a few minutes, a tiny spark emerged.

ViraTrixten's hair instantly exploded. I watched as Amandor hastily dropped the fireball into the campfire, and the flames licked up at the wood.

"Awesome," he said.

"Let's fix up yours and ViraTrixten's wounds. Then we can wake her up."

He nodded once, and headed for the medical kit.

Three minutes later, I was wondering how on earth anyone could be so annoying when they were _asleep. _ViraTrixten sneezed in my face three times. Whenever I tried to do up a bandage she would roll away from me. Finally, she was done.

"Great. Here's the smelling salts," Amandor said, handing me a little white tablet. I shrugged, and held it in front of ViraTrixten's nose. Instantly, she started retching and coughing.

"Pah!" she gasped. "GROSS!"

"Hey, ViraTrixten," I said as her eyes opened. She looked half-crazy with her hacked up hair and torn designer clothing.

"AAH!" she shrieked. "We need to get out of here!"

"No, we're fine, we aren't on the boat anymore," I said soothingly.

"No, we REALLY need to get out of here. I just had a dream... the people who took Ebony, they're coming NOW! WE NEED TO GO!" she yelled, not even noticing that she was practically half-bald.

I exchanged panicked looks with Amandor. Had ViraTrixten lost it? Was she crazy?

Then, somewhere far away, I could have sworn that I heard the sound of distant footsteps approaching.

I sighed. I really did hate my life.


	25. Chapter 26

**Summer holidays! YAY! Freedom!**

**And for those people up in the Northern Hemisphere, I live in Australia. We don't have white Christmases. We have bushfire-infested Christmases ****. Anyway. I'll probably have this story finished by the end of the holidays, and I can move on to a twilight parody! **

We would have run, but after a five-second debate we decided against it. We were all in a pretty bad way, and we would have made about as much progress as a pack of wild snails. Besides, I was curious to find out who these people were.

After about ten minutes, we all agreed that we could definitely hear footsteps. The sun was slowly making its way towards the horizon, and I knew that we had about two hours before night fell.

"Why are they taking so long?" ViraTrixten demanded for the five billionth time. "If they're going to bother tracking us, they could at least do it with a bit of style."

"Stop moaning. I'd rather they took their time," Amandor said irritably.

"Mah-REE!" ViraTrixten moaned. That was her way of saying my name every time she wanted something from me.

"Yes, dear ViraTrixten?" I asked, heaping as much sugar as I could into a three-word sentence.

"Can't you just, like, make a magical boat out of salt water and get us AWAY from this place?" she whinged. I resisted the urge to strangle her. My mouth was opening and preparing for a witty retort when the ground suddenly started to rumble ominously.

"Here we go again," Amandor said heavily as he tried to find a handhold in the ground to cling to. I braced myself hastily, and beside me, ViraTrixten grabbed the side of the lifeboat.

The ground beneath shifted, and we were all pitched sideways. A loud _clash _filled the air, and the rock slid back to its original position.

"AAAAAAAAARGH!" ViraTrixten shrieked. I had fallen on top of her while the rocks had shifted, and now she was doubled over in apparent pain.

"ViraTrixten, I'm so-" my apology was cut off by another blood-curdling shriek.

"What's wrong?" Amandor demanded.

"MY HAIR!" ViraTrixten screamed, frantically feeling her head. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY HAIR?"

I sighed. In hindsight, we probably should have seen this coming. When I had barrelled into ViraTrixten, she must have bumped a hand against her head. From then on, it wouldn't be hard to figure out that a large chunk of her hair was now some kind of boy-cut.

"We may have... used it to start our fire?" Amandor said timidly, before I had a chance to stop him. The term _if looks could kill _couldn't have been more accurate as ViraTrixten bore down upon him. I half-expected flames to start dancing in her eyes.

"You CUT OFF MY HAIR SO THAT YOU COULD USE IT TO MAKE A FIRE!" she shrieked. Amandor and I shrank away from her as she neared hysterics.

"ViraTrixten, calm down! It doesn't look so bad!" I said, lying through my teeth, of course. In truth, she looked as though her hair had been run over by a lawn mower.

"THEN SHOW ME A BLOODY MIRROR!" ViraTrixten screamed. I instinctively reached for my compact, but then I thought the better of it. However, ViraTrixten zeroed in on my movement.

"That's a compact mirror," she snapped. "GIVE IT TO ME NOW!"

I cautiously handed it to her, and then clenched my eyes shut, bracing myself.

ViraTrixten would've started screaming. She would have thrown a fit, shrieking obscenities at us and threatening us with violent torture. But luckily- or unluckily, something interrupted her.

"Don't worry about it. If you ask me, it's an improvement."

ViraTrixten spun around. I scrambled to my feet, feeling around for a weapon as I registered the heavily cloaked people before me.

I couldn't see their faces, but somehow I knew for certain that these were the same people who had chased us through the Labyrinth. One of them stepped forward, dragging with them a figure with black clothes and awful hair...

"Ebony!" I cried. She looked up, and I met her eyes.

Ebony looked terrible. She had apparently been attempting to put on make-up without a mirror; her black lipstick was smeared across her left cheek in a huge splodge, her mascara was doubling as a lumpy, black eye shadow, and her eyeliner... I wasn't even going to describe it.

"Mary1" she cried. I resisted the urge to facepalm. Leave it to Enoby to ruin any tearful reunions with her illiteracy.

"You're alive!" Amandor said. It was hard to tell whether he was happy or disappointed.

"Unfortunately," one of the cloaked people muttered. I glared at the one holding Ebony, assuming she was the leader.

"What do you want with Ebony?" I demanded. "Let her go!"

"No."

Wow. These guys really knew how to get the message across. I actually didn't have an answer. Thankfully, ViraTrixten had some kind of autopilot function that kicked in whenever somebody said the word 'no'. She _hated _being refused anything.

"What do you mean, no?" she snarled.

"No, as in we won't let her go," the hooded figure said calmly. I was able to identify her as female by her voice, but apart from that she was a complete stranger to me. However, I didn't have time to focus on her, because ViraTrixten was swelling up as though she were about to explode.

"Okay, look here, little miss I'm-so-hideously-deformed-that-I-need-to-wear-an-ugly-robe-to-cover-up-my-fat-and-ugly-face," she growled, advancing upon the girl. "I am SICK of this Quest. My cruise ship has been CRUSHED. My designer clothes are ruined, I have NO makeup, I have only got ONE BLOODY COMPACT MIRROR TO LOOK AT MYSELF IN, AND _MY HAIR HAS BEEN CUT OFF! _I'M TIRED, I'M HUNGRY, AND I'M BORED! THE LAST THING I NEED RIGHT NOW IS SOME UGLY LITTLE FREAK SAYING NO TO ME! _GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND GIVE IT TO ME NOW!" _she screamed. I slowly backed away from her. She looked deranged as she bore down upon the cloaked girl. Even the creepy evil villains were looking worried as they glanced uneasily at each other.

"You really should work on your temper," one of the hooded figures said. I performed a quick head count. There were six of them facing us, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more hidden away. I knew from our quick previous encounter that these guys were good with strategy.

"I know that you may not hold the greatest impression of us," another one said, "but we need your help."

There was a second of silence.

"I'm sorry- you need our help?" Amandor asked. I frowned. His voice had a small quaver in it. Then I remembered- Amandor had seen the face of one of these people. When we had been in the Labyrinth, he'd come close enough to see underneath their hoods. I had never gotten the chance to ask him exactly what he'd seen.

"It's rather uncomfortable, but yes." The girl at the front sighed as though she was reluctant to continue. "I'm proposing a truce. I'll explain the situation, and then perhaps you'll help us."

ViraTrixten opened her mouth to refuse, and Amandor was right behind her. Neither of them wanted anything to do with these people. But I wanted to. I wanted answers.

"Okay," I said, ignoring the glares of Amandor and ViraTrixten. It was entirely possible that this was some kind of elaborate trap, but somehow I doubted it. Without a glance back, the cloaked figures turned and walked away from us, dragging Ebony with them. I hurried after them, and after a moment's hesitation, Amandor and ViraTrixten followed.

One nice thing about these evil guys was that they had a really cool campsite. Sure, the black tents were a little ominous, but they had a strong fire and lots of food. I was so busy stuffing my face that I barely had time to feel sorry for Ebony, who had been shoved into a cage made from silver.

"So," the cloaked girl said, striding forward. Amandor, ViraTrixten and I were all sitting around the campfire. The girl sat across from us, her hood throwing her face into a shadow.

"You have to understand who we are and what we do before I can explain everything to you." She paused for a moment before continuing. "We are Slayers."

There was a brief second of silence, and then ViraTrixten broke it with a trademark rude comment.

"What the hell are Slayers? What do you slay?"

"Vampires," the girl said coldly. "We are vampire slayers."

"So Ebony..." I said quietly, but she cut across me.

"I'll get to that. I'm sure you all know about the imbalance in the world. Strange people have been popping up everywhere- for example, Lord Voldemort appeared in the middle of a camp for half-gods. We are essentially in the same position as him- we belong to another world. But somehow, the worlds are all merging together. That is something we have to deal with. We are in another world, and we have managed to accept that."

"So, what do you want with Ebony?" I asked.

"Information. We all have one destiny- one purpose. We need to slay vampires, no matter where they are."

"So... you guys aren't interested in getting home? You just want to kill vampires?" I asked.

"Yes. However... we aren't entirely sure what vampires are in this world. When we suddenly found ourselves in your camp, we discovered that there are some sparkly creatures called vampires who aren't affected by stakes, holy water, crosses, garlic or sunlight. They didn't even have _fangs. _I'll admit, it was a huge disappointment. But then we heard a prophecy, in which a 'goff who is a vamp' was mentioned. We decided to go for it."

"You heard the prophecy, and decided you'd use it to discover if there are any vampires worth fighting in this world," Amandor guessed.

"That's right. We followed the four of you, watched as you destroyed that man's home and made your way to New York. We didn't know which one of you was the vampire... so we captured all of you. We intended to interrogate all of you in turn until we found the vampire, but by some stroke of ironic luck Ebony was the first person we interrogated. We discovered that she was... _sort of_ a vampire."

"So why did you capture her again?" ViraTrixten asked.

"We needed information on the vampires of this world. What can kill them, what they're attracted to... things like that. Unfortunately, we ran into a few... problems."

I thought over the endless conversations I'd had with Ebony- the impossible spelling mistakes, the awful grammar... and the punctuation. No wonder they'd had problems.

"According to Ebony, there are only two things that can kill a vampire in this world. A steak through the heart is one of them, and the other she spelled out for us, because she didn't want to say it."

"A cross?" I asked.

"That's right. We still don't know how on earth we're supposed to drive a steak through anyone's heart- and should it be raw or cooked?"

I was stunned into silence. These weren't bad guys at all! They were just a little bit creepy. And all they wanted was information!

"We'll make you a deal!" I said eagerly. "You let Ebony go, and we'll tell you all you need to know about the vampires in this world."

The girl hesitated, glancing between me and Ebony.

"Come on," I insisted. "Does she really look dangerous to you? I know she acts like she's capable of violence, but she doesn't even know how to load a gun."

The slayer sighed, and nodded slowly.

"Fine."

"Wait a second," ViraTrixten snapped. "_I _still have some questions. How come Queen Hera knows about you, huh? Why doesn't she think we should trust you? And how did you lot end up on a clashing rock with us?"

"Those questions are easy," the girl said tonelessly. "Queen Hera knows about us because, for the short time we were at your camp, we used her cabin as a refuge. No-one noticed us. No-one ever goes in there."

"And... she doesn't think you should be trusted because you slept in her cabin?" Amandor asked.

"That probably is a factor. And as for the clashing rocks..." she smiled. "We were on the ship with you the whole time. You just didn't notice us when you were conducting your little search."

"What? Where were-"

"Enough questions," the girl snapped. "You owe me information. I suggest you start talking."


	26. Chapter 27

**My internet went down yesterday before I got a chance to post this, so sorry for the delay. I'm going to be at the beach for the next week and a half, but I'm not entirely sure when I get back. I'll try and post the next chapter the day after I return home ****. **

It took an hour to explain everything to our new, creepy friend. She didn't interrupt once, she just made the occasional disgusted noise whenever I mentioned something like 'sparkles' or 'goff.' Other than that, she was the only polite person I had spoken to in a long time. ViraTrixten and Amandor didn't contribute to the story at all, and I was quite glad that Ebony had decided to imitate them. The last thing I needed was to become a goff-to-English translator.

"Hmmm," she said at the end of it. "So... you are saying that the only vampires in existence in your world are these sparkly creatures_." _

"Pretty much," I said. "Well, there are some ancient Greek monsters that are sort of like vampires, but they're sort of burning in the pits of Tartarus right now, waiting to reform."

"Ah."

The strange girl paused for a moment, and it struck me that I still didn't even know her name. But for some reason, I wasn't inclined to ask what it was. We sat in an uncomfortable silence until ViraTrixten- dear, darling ViraTrixten, got bored and decided to well... be ViraTrixten.

"Um, can we have Oak-"

"Ebony," I corrected her, in case the goff in question got offended. She was watching us anxiously from her cage, her blue eyes wide and anxious.

"Yeah, sure. Can we have her back now? Because we kinda have this Quest to go on, and there's this Prophecy that says that one of us needs to die a dramatic death, and if we have Ebony with us then the odds of me getting killed are reduced by eight percent, so..."

The Slayer turned to look at ViraTrixten.

"We have all of the information we need. You may have your friend back."

"Wait, so... that's it? You'll let Ebony go, and we can just... leave?"

The Slayer strode over to Ebony's cage and inserted a silver key in the lock. The door swung inward with an ominous creak, and Ebony immediately rushed out, avoiding all contact with her captor.

"All right..." Amandor said uneasily, as Ebony hurried to join us. "We'll just go, then."

"Hang on," ViraTrixten snapped, stepping forward. "We don't have a boat. Our tent is ugly and smells disgusting. The 'food' we're stuck with is gross. Give us some of your stuff."

"ViraTrixten," I muttered, "that's enough. We can go now."

ViraTrixten scowled ferociously at the Slayer, but seemed to decide that she wouldn't be giving us anything.

"Fine," she snapped. "Let's go."

I glanced at Ebony, who seemed unwilling to speak in the presence of the Slayer. Oh well. At least I would have an extra few minutes before she started talking and gave me a migraine.

We all rushed through the darkness towards our small camp, suddenly eager to escape from the creepy Slayers and their watchful eyes. No-one spared any cries of relief for Ebony, which was fair enough. We wouldn't want her to start talking.

When we reached the camp, ViraTrixten doubled over, clutching her sides, and shrieked.

"I want the bigger tent, Amandor! Step away!"

This seemed to send a spark back into the air, and we all suddenly remembered that we could in fact speak.

Amandor immediately struck up a loud, pointless argument with ViraTrixten, while Ebony turned to me. I resisted the urge to flinch.

"Fangz (geddit) 4 hlpien!" she said. I raised my eyebrows, unable to dignify that sentence with a response.

"Mah-REEEEE!" ViraTrixten shrieked. "I don't care if the big tent is supposed to shelter fifteen people, I WANT-"

"Gods, I feel sorry for your parents!" Amandor snarled. ViraTrixten spun around to face him, a sassy reply on her lips.

"Wats a Muhrri?" Ebony asked.

"I AM NOT GOING TO BE INSULTED BY THE STUPID PLAYBOY WHO CUT OFF MY HAIR!" ViraTrixten screamed.

"WATS A MUAFKI?"

"If you want that tent, you have to share with _someone!" _

"Im hufgny!

"I'll sleep where I damn well please! And I do NOT SHARE!"

"You can share with Ebony!"

"Can't you raid that stupid Slayers' camp? They have a freaking HUGE tent! Then you'll have somewhere to sleep too and you'll SHUT UP."

"WHJERS MI MAKUP?"

"Stop being such a spoilt brat!"

"Stop being so... ARGH!"

"SHUT UP!" I yelled furiously. Silence instantly fell.

It lasted approximately two seconds.

"It's not MY FAULT that this STUPID LITTLE-" ViraTrixten began, but I cut her off.

"ViraTrixten, can you please STOP TALKING for two seconds?" I demanded. I glanced between the two tents. One was considerably larger than the other, but was covered in tears and rips. The other was quite small, but was in way better condition. I hesitated, before doing the logical thing.

"Okay. Amandor, you get the one-man tent. The girls can have the bigger one," I said. Amandor nodded and ViraTrixten spun around furiously.

"WHAT?"

"If you don't like it," I snapped at her, "You can share with Amandor!"

Amandor gave me a look which told me that any respect he might have gained for me had been lost with that last sentence. I brushed his glare aside.

"We'll sleep tonight, and set sail in the morning," I said slowly. Immediately, ViraTrixten raised her hand.

"But we don't have a boat!"

"Enough questions!" I snapped. "If you're hungry, eat, and then we can go to sleep!"

I watched as ViraTrixten ate her way through half of our rations, and Amandor tended to his own wounds. Yawning, I made my way into the bigger tent, where Ebony was lying down.

"No1 cars dat im bak," she said sadly as I clambered inside. I repressed a groan. In this kind of situation, I had three options. I could either tell Ebony the truth, which would crush her dreams, spirit and self-esteem, I could lie and make her feel good about herself, or I could stay quiet- which would again crush her dreams, spirit and self-esteem.

"Of course we're happy to have you back, Ebony!" I said through gritted teeth. "You really... help us. The way you... do stuff... it's amazing!"

"U rlly fink so?"

"Oh yes. Yeah."

She gave a happy little sigh before she fell silent, and I assumed she had drifted off to sleep. I grabbed a sleeping bag, and clambered inside, allowing the waves of exhaustion lapping at my mind to consume me. I had a long day tomorrow.

_I stared at the sky, trying to hold back the glimmer of hope. I had Seen before, of course, but now I knew. Still, I couldn't allow myself to hopelessly hope. If my dreams were dashed, then I would be left in an even more hopeless hopeful state then before. _

_But still... I knew. _

_Freedom was coming. They were coming. I could help._

_I liked helping. _

_Even though the gods had never done me any favours, I still wanted to help them. I would be saving myself from this cruel fate, and at the same time I would be saving the gods from their fate. I just needed one key, and that key was coming. I knew it._

_I gazed over the beautiful ocean of _LIPSTIK! _and I knew that _SHUT UP, I'M TRYING TO GET SOME BEAUTY SLEEP! _my plan would _WHERS MY BLAK EYESHARROW?

I woke with a start. Ebony and ViraTrixten's voices had somehow crept into my dream and had turned it... weird.

"Guys!" I complained, sitting bolt upright. "I was having a really important vision there, and YOU JUST RUINED IT!"

"I HAFF NO MAKUP!" Ebony wailed at the top of her lungs. ViraTrixten growled from the corner of the tent.

"I am TRYING to get some sleep here, because unlike you FREAKS, I don't like having ugly shadows under my eyes!"

I groaned, and reluctantly got to my feet. Leaving ViraTrixten to her childish rants, I wandered outside where Amandor was eating his share of dried food. As I helped myself to some of the disgusting stuff, I heard Ebony shrieking from the inside of the tent.

"So," Amandor said absently. "We're leaving this morning?"

"Yup."

"I'm kind of worried about those Slayers. They're up to something. I think they might follow us."

"We'll keep an eye out," I promised. "It was definitely strange, the way we didn't find them when they were hiding on board the cruise ship."

"Yeah... strange."

Just then, our _lets try and avoid the people who want to kill us _time was interrupted when the monster from the black lagoon staggered towards us.

Sorry. I shouldn't say monster from the black lagoon. It was a ViraTrixten who hadn't had enough sleep, which was ten times worse.

"Is that it?" she snarled as she regarded the dried food with disgust. I groaned. ViraTrixten was becoming more and more unbearable as our trip got harder. She was used to living the perfect life, and having that taken away had turned her into a vicious monster with huge fangs.

"So..." Amandor said lightly, trying to ignore ViraTrixten's presence. "How exactly are we going to get off of this rock?"

"By boat," I said casually.

"What?"

"There's an old boat lying on the sea floor," I said. I wasn't sure how I knew this, but it suddenly seemed blissfully obvious. "It must have somehow cleared the clashing rocks, but some monster must have eaten everyone there. I'll just go get it, fix up whatever's wrong with it, and we can get looking for this Ugly Mary Sue."

Across from me, Amandor bit his lip. I had no idea what he was so worried about. Honestly, it was like my plans weren't trustworthy for some strange reason.

Fifteen minutes later, I was underwater, floating next to some fishing boat. Thankfully, it was in perfect condition- aside from the gaping hole in the side of it. Also thankfully, the hole wasn't too difficult to fix. All I needed was...

"Duct tape." ViraTrixten had temporarily forgotten about being nasty as she stared at the boat bobbing along in the water. "You fixed a boat... with _duct tape." _

"Isn't it great?" I sang. My friends had all clambered down the side of the cliff to see my handiwork, and now they were looking as though they wanted to crawl back up again. I watched as Ebony took a great leap and jumped onto the boat. It was a fairly small, fairly ordinary fishing boat, but it was far better than the demolished lifeboat.

"Come on, guys!" I called to ViraTrixten and Amandor. "Ebony doesn't have a problem with it!"

For some reason, that didn't seem to comfort them.

"I must be crazy. I must be crazy," ViraTrixten repeated over and over again as she gingerly climbed onto the boat. Amandor followed her, glancing around anxiously. However, it didn't take long for his curiosity to get the better of him.

"Wow!" he cried, hurrying into the indoor section of the boat, only to return seconds later. "Check this out! It's an ancient camera!"

I snorted. He was holding one of those old cameras which instantly spits out your photograph right after you've taken it.

"I bet cavemen built that thing," ViraTrixten said. "Try it out."

Two minutes later, ViraTrixten was shrieking in horror at the state of her photograph. I looked at it and smirked. It _was _pretty funny. Ebony looked ridiculous, as usual and Amandor looked like a male model (I was pretty sure he had actually been to a modelling school) despite his bruises, cuts and torn clothing. I looked pretty good for someone who had recently been thrown fifty bazillion feet into the air and landed back on a stone surface, but ViraTrixten...

I snorted. She had slapped a sassy pout on her face as the picture was being taken, so consequently she looked like a pouting, pale, hair-through-a-lawn-mower troll.

I pocketed the photo, just so I could show it to ViraTrixten when she was annoying me.

"All hands on deck!" I cried.

"Um, Marie," Amandor said slowly. "This boat runs on fuel... what happens when we run out?"

I chose not to answer that question as I pulled some random lever upwards and our boat creaked forward.


	27. Chapter 28

**I'm baack! And I felt bad writing this ****. Now I'm going to have to make the next chapter incredibly fun and perky, because this one was depressing. **

I had no idea how a fishing boat had ended up in the middle of the ocean, but it clearly hadn't been an easy journey. The engine creaked reluctantly as I forced it to continue onwards through the water. We weren't really making much progress. I was hoping that we'd have the chance to stop by at Circe's island and steal ourselves a proper boat, but unfortunately, we saw nothing. Just stupid, boring ocean.

"Djid u no dat ur blak iliner-"

"AARGH!"

I groaned. Here it came.

ViraTrixten came storming into the room, and I tried and failed to hide underneath the steering wheel.

"WHY THE HELL DID WE EVEN BOTHER RESCUING HER?" ViraTrixten screamed. "She's USELESS! SHE WAS TRYING TO TELL ME HOW TO APPLY MAKE-UP! WHY?"

I tried my very hardest to be invisible. ViraTrixten just needed an audience, she didn't actually expect me to speak. I hoped.

This wasn't the first time that I had to wonder whether I had perhaps just made the teeniest error in inviting ViraTrixten along. She wasn't exactly your 'quest' type. But then again, were there any Mary Sues who were?

"AND THERE IS NO MAKE-UP ON THIS STUPID LITTLE-"

Yeah. She really wasn't what I would call the quest type.

"What's going on in here?" Amandor demanded, striding into the room. I cringed. Great. This was just what I needed.

"Well," I said in a falsely cheerful voice, "it's been _lovely _chatting to you, but... I'm hungry! Bye! Amandor, you don't mind steering the boat, do you?"

Apparently, Amandor _did _mind steering the boat, but he wasn't given much choice when I bounded out of my crouching position and towards the door. I didn't want to be caught in the middle of another Amandor and ViraTrixten face-off.

Making my way onto the deck, I allowed the sea spray to lash at my face for a while as I thought. A small fish leapt out of the water, and it took me a second to realise that it had a razor-sharp, blood-spattered tail and deadly-looking fangs. Huh. My first monster in the Sea of Monsters. Somehow I had expected it to be a little more dramatic.

I wondered vaguely about the Prophecy. It sure was getting frustrating. I had almost forgotten it, but it had lurked in the back of my mind, ready to jump out and scare me to death whenever the opportunity presented itself.

_Four shall get to leave this camp,_

Well, that part of it had come true, I supposed. But it would have been nice if the prophecy had mentioned that a bunch of crazy vampire slayers were following us.

_The random new character, the main character, the other guy, and the goff who is a vamp,_

ViraTrixten would be the random new character, I guessed. I was the main character, Amandor would be the other guy (I'm sure he loved being brushed aside like that) and Ebony was the vampiric goff.

_They shall search for the Ugly Mary Sue,_

This prophecy was stupid.

_They shall travel by boat in the ocean blue. _

They could have been a little more descriptive with that line. Something like _'they shall travel by insane luxury cruise ship and then the stupid battered old fishing boat in the ocean blue.'_

_One will die a dramatic death,_

Finally, we were reaching the good stuff. The stuff that hadn't happened yet. The stuff that I didn't really want to happen.

I didn't really think that Ebony was capable of dying a dramatic death. She would probably spout a line like 'NJOOOOOO!11111111111111111111' which would just kill the mood. But did that mean that ViraTrixten or Amandor were going to die? As much as they annoyed me, I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them. Well, perhaps ViraTrixten. But nothing life threatening!

I refused to pay attention to the fact that ViraTrixten's life was in danger probably just by being on this duct-taped boat, and moved onto the next line.

_One shall successfully send everyone deaf,_

I assumed that Ebony would be the one to do that. She had practically achieved it already. Then again, it could be ViraTrixten with her sonic screams.

_The other two don't matter much right now,_

Great. I felt loved. I also felt slightly irritated, because the prophecy wasn't telling me whether or not 'the other two' were doing anything _significant._

_So now I will go and ride a cow._

Yeah. That line pretty much spoke for itself.

I pressed my fingers to my temples and stared at the churning water. All I was able to get out of that Prophecy was that at least one of us was going to die, and that the rest of us were going to be deaf. That wasn't exactly helping my mood. 

A particularly large _splash _managed to hit me in the face, and I glared at the water. Stupid ocean. Or _sea_, if you wanted to get all technical. I had no idea why they called this the Sea of Monsters, anyway. We'd been in here for two whole hours, and I had only seen some kind of mutant goldfish and piranha crossover. Where were the monsters? It was almost... eerie. It was if they were trying to freak me out and turn me paranoid, simply by not showing up.

Unfortunately, it was working.

My train of thought was interrupted by ViraTrixten, who had evidently finished with her argument. She was doing her usual 'triumphant strut' thing, but it was ruined by her hair, make-up and well... everything. ViraTrixten was beautiful, of course, but unfortunately she looked like an adorable kitten that had been dunked in a lake. You just couldn't help but laugh when you saw her.

"What's so funny?" she demanded as she glared at me.

"Nothing!" I said airily. "Just... something."

ViraTrixten gave me a suspicious glance, but seeing as she had only just concluded her fight with Amandor, she let it slide.

"I haven't seen a single monster," she complained.

"You've been inside for most of this time, ViraTrixten."

"That's beside the point. This place is supposed to be infested with monsters, and we haven't met one."

"Well, they're underwater, aren't they? So we just don't see them as often."

"Sharks are underwater, and we see them all the time!"

"But that's when they _aren't _underwater. Or at least, not really deep."

This wasn't exactly what I'd call an intellectual conversation. In fact, I was half considering running off and asking Ebony to tell me all about Hogwarts- again.

"Yeah, but-"

"You know what?" I asked. "Let's just drop it. Perhaps the monsters are just invisible."

ViraTrixten nodded once, staring at the water. For about one second, there was silence.

"If something's invisible underwater, would we be able to see it? Because even if we couldn't see them, the water would still make a person- shaped bubble thing around them, don't you think?"

I wasn't in the mood to answer ViraTrixten's stupid (and at the same time, logical) question. I muttered something about taking over the wheel from Amandor, and hurried off to find him.

Hours seem to pass more slowly when you're at sea. Perhaps it's because there isn't much to do, but to me it felt as though I had to adjust to a new version of time. Time moved differently in magical places, but I had never actually noticed it before now. I steered the boat, even though technically we didn't even need any steering in a place with no islands and no places to run aground.

It _was _weird, how we hadn't met any monsters... surely there had to be land _somewhere. _After all, it took most people about ten minutes to encounter their first monster in this place. If this lucky streak of ours held, we might just make it through this Quest without encountering a single monster.

I should have touched wood after I thought that. Never had there been a more obvious tempt of an ironic disaster. But no, I decided to do the stupid thing. I just kept on steering, blissfully unaware of the approaching doom.

_Wham._

I was tossed sideways like a rag doll as something slammed into the boat. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the end to come, but nothing happened. There was silence as the boat slowly righted itself.

"Did anyone else just feel that?" I heard ViraTrixten yell.

"Stupid question," Amandor cried from the deck. "How could we _not _feel that?"

I cut the engine and ran out onto the deck, hoping that perhaps it had been... something _not bad. _

"Why didn't I touch wood?" I wailed, earning a couple of weird looks.

"Marie!" ViraTrixten cried when she saw me. "Do you think-"

"Wjat wuz dat?" Ebony demanded, coming out from Zeus knows where.

"We should scan the water," I said. "We need to see if there's anything in-"

_Crash._

"CURSE YOU, IRONY!" I screamed at the sky as the boat rolled sideways again.

"It's a monster!" ViraTrixten yelled.

"Congratulations, Einstein! You are correct!" Amandor snapped back.

I was about to break up the fight, but then an ominous shadow fell over the boat.

"Shleekumpleeg," I heard ViraTrixten say as she stared up at the monster. I, on the other hand, gulped and forced myself to look upwards.

When you look at something really, truly terrifying, words like _scary _and _fearful _suddenly sound ridiculous. It's like someone saying '_Oh, bother!' _if they just saw their grandmother fall off a cliff. A huge understatement.

I was looking at a sea serpent. Well, it was a sea serpent which had clearly been fed steroids from the moment of its birth, because it was _huge. _Its forked tongue flickered in and out, and as I watched, it dived into the depths of the ocean again.

"Maybe it saw us on the boat and it's going to leave us alone?" ViraTrixten said hopefully.

A sinister bubbling noise came from the depths of the ocean, and a second later the serpent reappeared on the other side of the boat. It didn't even glance at us as it leapt over the boat and plunged back into the water, leaving a snake body curled around the back of the deck.

"It's crushing the boat," Amandor said silently. "_It's crushing the boat!" _

I understood within seconds. This serpent would wrap itself around our vessel like a python, and would squeeze. And not even duct tape would stop it.

"We need to get it away from this thing!" ViraTrixten yelled.

"Fantastic! How the hell do we do that?" Amandor snarled.

ViraTrixten bit her lip, obviously deep in thought.

"PREP!" Ebony shrieked, throwing a bucket at the monster.

"Wait!" ViraTrixten yelled. I'll distract it, and you guys need to get this boat moving as fast as possible, okay?"

I wasn't sure if I could trust her. The monster already had a pretty good grip on the boat, but it wasn't like we had any other options...

"Amandor, you take the wheel!" I yelled. ViraTrixten's face lapsed into relief, and she ran towards the monster. I hope she planned to 'distract' it properly. "I'll speed the boat up from here, you just _get the engine moving._ Ebony..." I paused. "You can... throw more buckets."

Amandor ran off, hopefully in the general direction of the steering wheel. Ebony also disappeared, perhaps to find more buckets. I barely registered seeing ViraTrixten clamber onto the monster's back. I just closed my eyes and concentrated, willing the water to resist the serpent, to push the little fishing boat forward. At first, the response didn't come, and I panicked, but soon I could feel the water propelling the boat forward, and I could feel it forcing the monster away from us. It was taking so long- why was it taking so long? The monster had a tight grip... I was lucky it hadn't had a chance to wrap itself around the boat more than once.

I willed the water forward with my thoughts, urging it to _move, _to do as I said, to help us escape. We were being pushed forward, but it wasn't working, and-

I was suddenly distracted by a loud yell, a monstrous shriek, and another shout, much closer. I scowled, irritated. Couldn't they see that I was trying to save us, to push the boat forward? How long had I been doing this?

_Snap._

I felt the pressure of the monster's body suddenly recoil away from the boat, and all of the built up water behind it suddenly came rushing forward, pushing the boat at a rate which would have shattered world records. It was only then that I noticed the wrenching pain in my gut.

_Stop. _

How could I have not have noticed that pain before? It was like someone was jabbing a red-hot poker into my stomach.

_STOP._

The water was still pushing the boat forward, I could hear screams and a male voice, yelling.

"STOP!"

The pain shut off just as the command left my mouth. I fell forward onto the ground, shivering. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

"Marie! You're okay?"

"Yeah..." It was Amandor. My vision was blurred, but I was fairly sure that the black lump behind him was Ebony.

"We have to turn around," Amandor said. I had never heard him sound so... what was the word? Angry? Scared?

"Amandor," I choked. "There's a huge sea serpent back-"

"_We have to go back."_

I raised my head slowly, scanned my surroundings.

"Where's ViraTrixten?"

Silence.

"She was on its back..." I remembered.

"Yeah, and she's still there," Amandor said coldly. Horror washed through me.

ViraTrixten hadn't gotten off of the monster in time. She must have somehow managed to force it to release us, but the boat would have moved off so quickly that she couldn't have had a chance to jump on.

We could turn back, but something told me it was useless. ViraTrixten had been completely unselfish. She had done all she could to keep that monster from killing us, even though she didn't like any of us too much and we weren't too keen on her either.

If that wasn't a dramatic death, I didn't know what was.


	28. Chapter 29

**Yay! It's a day late! Even though I am on holidays and have all of the time in the world! Well, I guess my lovely schedule has been thrown out the window with the arrival of the holidays, so new chapters will probably just be popping up at completely random times. **

I'd always gotten impatient with people in movies who 'lost heart.' I'd always seen them as stupid, overly-sentimental types. Whenever someone on TV would say 'Oh, she's just lost heart,' I would switch it right off. Or, if I was in a bad mood, I might chuck a rock at the TV, and then Tim would have to pay for a new one.

Now, I totally got the concept. I'd all but forgotten why we were even on this stupid Quest. It was pointless. The Ugly Mary Sue would probably turn out to be some ditzy, clueless chick who moaned about everything. I was willing to bet that she wouldn't be any help at all. I just wanted to go home.

There had been hardly any conversation on the boat for a week. Even Ebony had been stunned into silence by what had happened. The last time I remembered speaking with anyone had been two nights ago, when I had told Ebony that there was no possible way she could use a fishbone as an eyeliner pencil.

The longest conversation I'd had in a week was right after ViraTrixten's disappearance. Amandor had told me, in a dead, stunned voice, that he had been at the wheel, forcing the boat forward, when the engine had suddenly stopped.

I still laughed bitterly whenever I thought about that. It just seemed like the cruellest irony that, at that exact moment, we had run out of fuel. Of all the things that could've happened, it had been that.

Amandor had realised what was happening, and had run out onto the deck. He said that I had been standing there, frozen like a statue, and ViraTrixten had been scaling up the monster's neck. The pressure had been building up behind the boat, and the waves behind us were growing bigger and bigger. Ebony had apparently obeyed her orders, and had been throwing buckets mercilessly at the monster. Then, ViraTrixten had done the unthinkable- for her, at least. She had reached the monster's head, and without even hesitating, had stomped her fifteen-thousand dollar Coco Chanel stiletto heel into the monster's eye.

It had recoiled, of course, and that was when I had felt the monster break away and the waves force us forward. And ViraTrixten had been left with the monster.

I really had lost heart. Perhaps if a monster had had the decency to show up, then I might've been able to take my emotions out on it; I might've been able to acknowledge just how bloody _angry _I was. But no. The Sea of Monsters had returned to its eerily quiet state, and as I raised my arm, asking for more speed, I got the feeling that if we decided to sail on out of here, nothing would try to stop us.

I was standing in front of the wheel, staring out at the ocean. Of course, the wheel was useless now. The engine was useless. We had spent seven days relying entirely on my powers over the sea to keep us moving, and frankly, it was getting annoying. All I wanted to do was punch something, and instead I was busy being the engine.

I didn't really know how Amandor and Ebony were handling this, but I didn't really care. None of us wanted sympathy at the moment, we all just wanted to be left alone, so we could handle the sudden loss in our own separate ways.

_My _tactic seemed to be getting really, really angry, and then bottling it all up. It probably wasn't good for me, but I didn't care. I felt like a time bomb, ready to explode at any second. I found myself becoming incredibly frustrated at the tiniest things- like the way Ebony _never _brushed her teeth properly, or the fact that Amandor always clenched his hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets when he was angry... I wanted to scream at them both.

My arms tensed, and I felt the water around the fishing boat surge forward with new speed. I didn't know if I could keep this up much longer- I had spent all of my time forcing the boat onwards, only taking breaks when I needed to eat or sleep.

This was getting ridiculous. I needed to rest.

I slowly relaxed both of my hands, allowing the boat to come to a stop. We were drifting, but that didn't exactly matter when I had no idea where I was going. I headed outside, tried not to spend too much time looking at the place where I had last seen ViraTrixten, and hurried down below deck. Inside was a small room containing four tiny little beds. ViraTrixten's bed was still unmade from seven days ago, when she had demanded that Ebony do it for her. A pile of make-up lay on the sheets, and next to it was a cracked mirror, which had apparently been thrown violently at the wall before it had fallen back onto the bed.

'_SHE WAS TRYING TO TELL ME HOW TO APPLY MAKE-UP! WHY?'_

ViraTrixten's words came back as a vague memory. I remembered, about half an hour before _it _had happened, she'd been fighting with Ebony about make-up. The cracked mirror and the mascara which had been thrown across the bed were obvious signs of that.

Suddenly, I felt a wave of anger consume me. I wanted to hit something- really, _really _hard. With an effort, I tore my eyes away from ViraTrixten's bed and moved over to my own. Flopping back onto the sheets, I gazed at the water-stained ceiling and tried to clear my head.

Someone would notice that we were drifting soon, and then they might come to yell at me. That was good. I could use a fight right now.

Of course, I stupidly had refused to acknowledge how tired I was, and before I knew or could do anything about it, I was nodding off. By that time, I simply couldn't be bothered to order my body to get this boat moving once again, and I allowed myself to be pulled down by the heavy tides of sleep.

_They were close._

_So heartbreakingly, wonderfully, incredibly, happily, joyfully, amazingly close. _

_I could sense them with my incredibly strong senses- stronger than those of Kronos himself, in fact. I didn't like to boast about my powers, but they really were quite incredible. I could withstand almost anything... except _them_. That was why I had been imprisoned with them, I supposed. _

_Anyway, they were so close. My freedom was close. _Our _freedom was close. We would finally set things right._

_I smiled. I could sense them now. They were coming... they had suffered a heavy loss, I sensed. I could fix that. I could fix everything. All I needed-_

"Marie!"

"Argh! Amandor! You woke me up!"

_Not long now-_

"Marie, there's land ahead!"

_So very close-_

"Land? As in... land?"

"Are you okay? You look half-conscious."

I shook my head, trying to clear the throbbing from it. I felt as if someone was hitting the inside of my brain repeatedly with a hammer.

"Headache," I forced out. "What were you saying about land?"

Amandor shook his head in confusion, but led me up to the deck. All the while, I kept one hand clutched against my head. The throbbing seemed to get worse every time I took a step up to the deck.

"There," Amandor said, pointing over the railing. I squinted, and was able to make out a small black speck on the horizon.

"That's land, all right," I murmered, still clutching my head. Amandor nodded.

"Do you know what it is?" he asked me anxiously. I wondered vaguely at his eagerness. Amandor clearly wanted to get off of this boat, for one reason or another.

"I don't... but it's probably dangerous," I said. Amandor nodded in agreement.

"How about we sail for it, get close enough to see what's going on there, and if it's too dangerous we turn around?" Amandor suggested. I paused for a moment. This probably wasn't a good idea, but it wasn't like there was anything else to do out in the middle of the ocean.

Suddenly, my headache seemed to worsen.

_They felt them._

"Marie?" Amandor sounded like he was standing outside an aquarium, while I was floating around inside. "Are you okay?"

_They would begin soon._

Why was I suddenly so worried?

"I think it's the Ugly Mary Sue," I muttered, just as much to myself as to Amandor. "We're close. She's... _talking _to me."

"D'you think she's on that island?" Amandor asked excitedly. I shrugged.

"I don't think I can move us forward yet."

Amandor had apparently forgotten all about my exhausted, energy-lacking state, and his face betrayed hints of confusion and irritation. But comprehension dawned soon enough, and he nodded.

"Okay... you'll sleep, and _then _we head for the island."

I nodded wearily, and began to head back in the direction of my sweet, sweet bed. Then, suddenly, an annoying, time-wasting thought occurred to me.

"Where's Ebony? If we've lost her again-"

"She's trying to convert the steering wheel into a goffik make-up applier," Amandor said solemnly. I snorted, and then headed for the stairs.

"We might want to find the anchor," he called after me. "We're still drifting, and odds are we'll drift _away _from the island."

I opened my mouth to agree, but something suddenly stopped me. I could feel the currents, and I felt the direction in which they dragged. In under a second, I was certain that they were heading towards the little island. For some reason, our boat was being drawn towards it. I took a second to compose myself.

"Yeah," I called over my shoulder. "You should definitely track the anchor down. Fast."

I barely heard Amandor's reply. I was below deck, and there, staring at me once again, was ViraTrixten's bunk.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was sleep. But ViraTrixten's make-up was still strewn across the sheets, and the broken mirror still lay across the bed. For some reason, that bothered me.

I sighed and dragged myself towards the bed, not even hesitating when I picked up a handful of lip-gloss containers and tossing them into Ebony's pile of stuff. I didn't have the heart to throw any of it out, but I certainly wasn't going to let a pile of make-up turn into a bitter reminder.

When all of ViraTrixten's make-up had been successfully disguised as Ebony, I picked up the broken hand-hold mirror. I had no idea how ViraTrixten had managed to stash in her clothing while we were on the cruise ship, but she had clearly managed.

I couldn't throw the mirror into Ebony's pile of cheap hot-topic gunk. Aside from the fact that Ebony might mistake it for a hairbrush or something, I knew that ViraTrixten would already be cursing me from the Underworld for letting Ebony have her make-up. If I gave away the mirror as well, I'd be haunted for the rest of my days.

I tossed the mirror onto my bed and set to work making ViraTrixten's. It took longer than it should have, because I'd never actually made a bed before, but eventually I had it looking just like a newly-made bed in a hotel.

I half-staggered over to my bed, satisfied with my work. I collapsed into the covers, ready for a good nap, when I felt the handle of ViraTrixten's mirror poking into my back. Groaning, I picked it up and slid it underneath my pillow. I buried myself in the slightly damp covers- all that time floating around the boat clearly hadn't been too good for them.

I hoped that Amandor had managed to track down some form of anchor on this ship. I really didn't want to wake up to find myself stranded on that island with whatever monsters were there.

My last thought before I drifted off to sleep was one of surprised amusement- after all this time, I hadn't even realised that I'd just had my first conversation in a week.

For some reason, that made me smile.


	29. Chapter 30

**Hmmm... it seems my weekly postings have been moved forward a day. My routine has officially been crucified. I do love the holidays.**

The water lapped gently against the sides of the boat, pushing and pulling it along with the tide. Even in my unconscious state, I knew which way the tides were moving. I knew which way the boat would be facing when I woke up. It seemed so irrelevant, but something in my head told me that it was very, very important. The water was not the only force pulling our little boat along. There was something else, something far more powerful than the tides, and it wanted us.

I was in a strange half-sleep, and I knew that the quietest thud would be enough to jerk me back into consciousness. I didn't know if I would even remember any of this when I woke up... but something told me that I _had _to. This was important.

_What was taking them so long? Didn't they understand my deadly, dire situation? How could they even consider delaying this?_

Huh. It was the first time I was able to form complete trains of thought when dreaming about the Ugly Mary Sue.

_I wasn't the only one who was frustrated with the delay. I heard an impatient snarl echo from somewhere else on the island, and shivered slightly. _

I was quickly growing irritated. It was like I was having a conversation, but every time I opened my mouth to ask a question or share an opinion, I would be cut off and ignored.

_I had to remain strong. I had to be patient and calm. I had waited for millennia. I could wait a little more. Hopefully, the girl would know what to do._

I hoped she wasn't referring to me. I didn't know what on earth she was talking about, so clearly I had no idea what to do either. Then again, Ebony was the only other girl around. It would either be me or her giving advice.

I mentally took back all of my previous thoughts, and prayed very, very hard that she was referring to me.

_They couldn't be much longer. They would find me soon. Would they be up to the challenge?_

Probably not.

_Of course they would be. They were demigods, after all._

This girl had clearly been detached from the real world for a very, very long time.

_For now, I just had to be patient. All I had to do was wait and hope._

If she mentioned 'waiting' or 'patience' one more time, I was going to scream. Mentally, at least.

I could sense the next gush of self-pitying words about to flow, when suddenly a loud _clang _echoed through the air. I was jerked instantly out of unconsciousness, and sat bolt upright on my bed. My eyes were bleary with sleep, but I was able to make out Ebony, lying at the foot of the stairs. She swore loudly as she scrambled to her feet, and I let out an irritated groan before slumping back into the sheets. Leave it to Ebony to spoil a perfectly good dream. I don't know what had possessed her to wear six-inch heeled boots, let alone attempt to totter down the stairs in them. It reminded me painfully of ViraTrixten's fashion habits.

"Ur awake!" she cried, once she had finished cussing out the stairs, her shoes and the universe in general.

"No, I'm not," I said sarcastically.

"Ur njot?"

I groaned, before sitting up once again. "Ebony, I was being sarcastic. I _am _awake."

"u jusst sed ur nott."

I felt a pang of sympathy. Ebony really was helpless in this big, complicated world. She didn't have a clue about reality. ViraTrixten's death had hurt her and it showed. Her eyes were sad and confused, as if she simply couldn't comprehend why any of this had happened. I sighed.

"I was kidding. I'm awake now. Really."

Ebony's brows furrowed in confusion as she attempted to process the information. I figured that she would take a good half hour before she understood, so I pulled myself out of the bed and headed for the stairs. I brushed past Ebony and made my way onto the deck, wondering how long I had been asleep for. I certainly felt well-rested, but my dream felt like it had been about two minutes long. As I rounded a corner on the deck, I almost ran right into Amandor.

"You're awake!"

"Yes, I've already established that," I muttered. "How long was I sleeping?"

"About five hours," he said absently. I glanced over at the horizon, and saw that the sun was already sinking towards the ocean. It was late afternoon, and I was guessing that we didn't have long before night fell.

"Well, that's going to mess up my sleep pattern," I said absently. Then I faltered. Out of the corner of my vision, I had spotted the tiny black speck. I don't know what it was about the sight, but I felt a chill run down my spine just from looking at it. There was something ominous about that place, but at the same time my mind seemed to be tugging me towards it, eager to explore it. It was like something on the island had tapped into my animal instincts, and was urging me to check it out.

"I guess we're going to take a look at the island?" I asked.

"I don't know..." Amandor said, a hint of strain in his voice. He sure sounded a lot less eager than what he had been five hours ago. "It just seems... unnatural, doesn't it? Like, I _really _want to go there, really badly, but I don't know why."

"Yeah..." I said slowly. "But I _know _the Ugly Mary Sue is close, and that place is our best bet. We'll find her, bring her back, and then get this damned Quest over with."

"Fair point. I guess you can just get us moving, then we'll head for this island and see what's there."

I nodded once, and headed for the front of the boat. I had gotten used to this routine over the past seven days, and I knew exactly what to do. Raising my arms, I felt the waves move almost automatically at my will, rising up and growing in strength. Before I knew it, we were racing towards the island, the black speck quickly growing larger and larger. A wave crashed over us and water rained onto the deck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something red flash through the air, and for a moment I thought it was blood. Then I reminded myself that Amandor was standing nearby, perfectly healthy, and that Ebony was below deck.

"Marie!" Amandor came running to my side, his voice frantic. "Stop!"

I stared at him. I guess what I'd seen _was _blood, because Amandor looked very, very shocked.

"STOP THE BOAT!"

I obeyed him, lowering my arms and urging the waves to slow. The island was no longer a speck, but a large blot on the horizon.

I relaxed with the waves, allowing my fists to unclench as the ocean ceased its churning. Then I turned to Amandor.

"What's wrong?"

Amandor held out his hand, and I raised my eyebrows. He was holding a long, black feather. It was beautiful, though I had no idea what attracted me to it. It at first seemed quite ordinary, but as it moved in the sunlight, its colour shifted and flashed blood-red. I found myself mesmerized by the colours.

"It must've come from the island," Amandor said with a shaky voice. His words were like a splash of cold water as my head suddenly cleared. I frowned. It was a _feather, _for crying out loud.

"Awesome. There are birds there. That means that there must be plants. Can we go?"

"Marie, look at the island. Can you see _any _signs of vegetation?"

I glanced at the island. It was close enough now to make out distinct colours, and I was certain that I couldn't see any green. It appeared to be entirely stone, with jagged cliffs jutting out at the sides and huge, spiky rocks poking out of the surrounding water.

"Amandor, as much as I appreciate talking in riddles, it would be really nice if you told me what the hell you're getting at."

Amandor bit his lip, gazing over at the island. "I think that we're heading for the Siren's island."

I gaped at him in disbelief. "How did a feather bring this on?" I demanded.

"The Sirens are half- bird," Amandor said. "This feather was floating in the ocean, and it was tossed onto the boat with that splash. But... I think it's one of theirs. Can't you feel its pull?"

I glanced at the feather again, and was almost instantly drawn in by its beauty. It wasn't fair that Amandor got to hold it. What had he done to deserve the honour?

"See?" Again, Amandor's voice sliced through my trance and forced me to focus. "It's a Siren's feather, I know it. And that island," he nodded to the Siren's island, "is their island."

The reality slowly sank in as I gazed at the island. I suddenly felt sick.

"We were about to sail right into it," I said disbelievingly.

"We should turn around. Get out, while the song's still too far away for us to hear."

The moment he said it, I opposed the idea. I _wanted _to go to the island. Not just because of the creepy pull; I was sure there was another reason. However, looking at the island was clouding my thoughts just as much as the feather- I couldn't think straight. Looking away and gazing determinedly at the algae-covered deck, I tried to clear my head.

"Marie! We're already being pulled towards that place! Are you turning us around or not?"

Realisation hit me at the exact moment that Amandor's words reached my ears. I shook my head a couple of times, just to make sure that my fuzzy thoughts weren't tricking me, then groaned in disbelief. I really hated the Fates. They just ruined everyone's lives.

"The Ugly Mary Sue is on that island," I said, and as I spoke, there was a steel note of determination in my voice. Amandor glanced at me.

"Wait... are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Think about it!" I cried, holding my hands up. "People have either heard the Siren's song and have been lured towards them and drowned, or they've stuffed their fingers in their ears and sailed right past! How many people have actually thought to stuff their fingers in their ears and _fight _the Sirens?"

"The same number of people who've found the Ugly Mary Sue, I'm guessing." I nodded at Amandor's voice, mostly because the reluctance was slowly draining out of it.

"Right. The Sirens are probably terrible at fighting. They've had no experience. All of their victims have been willing, right? So we'd probably have a good shot at destroying them."

"It all fits," Amandor murmered. "The Siren's island would be the worst prison imaginable... and no matter how powerful you were, you wouldn't be able to escape, because they'd just sing you back."

"Right," I said, staring at the island, which had already grown bigger from when I'd looked at it last. Our poor old boat was being drawn towards it at a frighteningly fast rate.

"So, I guess the only question is... should we go?"

I hesitated. For a moment, I pictured just turning around and heading back for Camp. I thought about going back to being loathed, hated by anyone who saw me. And then I thought about taking on the Sirens, and I thought about the possibility of dying in the process.

"I get the feeling that, if ViraTrixten ever found out that we had given up after she had sacrificed her life, she would make our afterlives a complete misery," Amandor said, shattering the silence. "So... either we could risk our lives and possibly die incredibly painful deaths, or we could live a few extra years and then be forced to deal with an angry ViraTrixten."

We looked at each other, and at that moment, reached our decision. "Sirens it is," Amandor concluded. I nodded in agreement, before turning back to the island.

"Okay. You find something to block up our ears, and I'll explain everything to Ebony," I said. "But be quick about it. We can't afford to lose any time."

Amandor nodded and headed off to scour the deck, the Siren's feather clenched in his fist. I took one last look at the gradually approaching island and hurried off, trying not to think about the monsters that lived there.


	30. Chapter 31

**It's late, I know *sigh.* I've been working on the last chapter, which is very, VERY long. And no, the next chapter is not the last one. Although THAT one is going to be pretty long as well. **

I've done a lot of stupid things in my life. I didn't realise that they were stupid at the time, but when I look back, I wonder how on earth I had survived all these years. I've punched teachers, stolen cars and spent countless hours in detention. Back then, I thought I was showing everyone that I was the awesome, rebellious girl with a tragic past. In reality, everyone hated me and thought I was an idiot.

Thankfully, I can look back and realise how stupid I've been. I had matured and gotten over that childish stage.

Right now, I felt like I was taking a step backwards.

We didn't have a battle plan. We didn't have any form of strategy. Right now, the general idea was to charge the Sirens and hope that we would get lucky. All that we had on our side was our wits.

"Im njot doijn dat! U cant make, meh, prep!11111111111"

We were doomed.

Ebony was glaring at Amandor through several layers of eyeliner, apparently determined to make his life as difficult as possible. We were all standing on the deck of the boat; I was holding two lumps of wax in my hands and was ready to get this thing moving. Ebony, however, had other ideas.

"IM NOT PUTING DAT IN MI EARRS!"

Who knew that someone who loved putting lethal chemicals on her face every day would refuse to even touch a bit of wax?

"Come _on, _Ebony! It won't kill you!"

"NJOO!"

"Ebony," he said in a supposedly calm voice. "Could you just put the stuff in your ears? It... it'll... I'll give you a gift voucher for Hot Topic if you just put them in!"

Ebony pondered this for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. I sighed in relief, and turned to Amandor.

"Okay," he instructed. "Just stick the stuff in your ears and hope for the best. Like I said, these monsters won't have any fighting experience."

"Wait," I said. "Perhaps we should _act _like we've fallen under their spell. If we go charging at them with a million weapons drawn, they'll figure out what's happening before we arrive."

"Good call," Amandor said. "No point in sacrificing the element of surprise. So, once our ears are plugged and they know we're nearby, act like you're under their spell. Anything else?" he directed at me. I shook my head once, and turned to regard the island. In the half-hour it had taken for Amandor to find a reasonable set of ear-plugs and for me to explain things to Ebony, it had grown closer and closer, and I had felt more and more uneasy. We still couldn't hear anything, but I knew we only had a matter of minutes left before the Siren's song would reach our ears.

"Okay. Marie, once you're sure we've all got our ears blocked, head this boat straight for the island."

I nodded once. For some reason, my throat had grown very dry. I watched as Amandor stuck his two lumps of wax into his ears, and Ebony copied him. She instantly looked confused, glancing around as though she simply couldn't understand why her hearing had just disappeared. I sighed, and stuck the wax into my own ears. It was very uncomfortable. It was also strange to hear the sound of the ocean just disappear. It had been in the background of my life for weeks now, and I hadn't realised it until now. The silence was almost eerie. If it wasn't for the rocking of the boat, I would have felt like we were back on land.

I glanced at Amandor, who gave me the thumbs up. I took a deep breath that no-one could hear, and moved to the front of the boat.

For some reason, it was more difficult when I couldn't hear the ocean. The sound of the crashing waves had always given me a new surge of power, but now I had to do without. Raising my arms, I tried to imagine the sound of thousands of different currents fighting against each other. The sea spray was lashing against my face, and that seemed to help. I could feel the wind slapping at my face now, and I knew that we must be moving pretty fast. I only realized at the last minute that I had closed my eyes. With an effort, I wrenched them open and, with a surge of panic, realised that we had to be only seconds away from the island. And I had forgotten to account for the huge, sharp rocks surrounding it.

I waved my right arm, and the entire boat pitched sideways as we narrowly avoided a huge, vicious looking rock rising out of the water. I knew that wouldn't be our only problem, though. There were hundreds of other rocks here, all concealed beneath the water. It would take every ounce of my concentration to avoid them... and then I would have to face the Sirens. Great.

The boat swerved again, and I got the feeling that it might've been a good thing I couldn't hear, because Amandor and Ebony would've been swearing at me for all they were worth. It still felt strange, seeing the waves crashing against the rocks, but not hearing any noise.

I realised at the last second that we were about to smash into another underwater death trap, and quickly sent the boat swerving to the side. I could feel the water pushing against the concealed rocks, and somehow I knew exactly where they all were. The currents were forced to temporarily split themselves in two when they came to an obstacle, and I could sense it all happening. It may sound conceited, by I genuinely thought that I would be able to get this done with my eyes shut.

The shoreline was just fifty metres away, but there were plenty of obstacles separating us. I slashed my hand through the air, and we swerved to avoid another rock. I cried out as I felt the whole boat pitch sideways and teeter dangerously on top of the water. If we tipped now, we would be smashed in between the boat and the rocks.

Quickly, I raised both my arms, trying to right the boat, and it rolled back into the right position. Almost instantly, however, I was forced to wildly force the boat to pitch back onto its side in order to avoid yet another jagged rock. This was getting very frustrating. The shoreline hadn't seemed to have gotten any closer, and I was wearing myself out. If this kept up, I wouldn't have enough energy to fight the Sirens at all.

I still don't completely understand what happened next. I should have sensed that huge wave coming, but perhaps I was just too distracted at the time. In any case, when that wall of water slammed into our boat, just two things were able to register in my head. The first; shock. I had foolishly thought that I had the ocean at my command, that I was in control, and now the water seemed desperate to prove me wrong. The second was that, despite the fact that we should all be shredded into little pieces right now, I was still alive.

I had been thrown off by that unexpected wave hitting us, and all of my powers had shut down in the midst of my surprise. But as the boat was tossed sideways, I realised that we were literally flying right over the rocks and directly towards the shore.

That was it. The universe officially hated me.

The right side of the boat was hurtling towards a lethal shoreline, and I was thrown to the side like a rag doll, smashing into a metal railing. With a quick glance, I could see that Amandor and Ebony were having much better luck than me. They had managed to grab onto something which was just out of my line of vision, and it looked as though neither of them would take too much impact from the coming collision.

It was strange, how time seemed to slow down. My head was buzzing with adrenaline, and I could almost feel the world around me spinning to a halt.

I looked around, and then realised that time really _did _seem to be slowing down. The boat was literally suspended in mid-air, and as I watched, a droplet of water flew in slow-motion over my head.

Okay. This was weird.

I suddenly remembered how I had defeated that Hellhound so long ago. This was pretty much the same, but on a far larger scale.

I took a deep breath, and carefully pulled myself along the boat, trying to get closer to Amandor and Ebony. I could already feel my strength draining away, and I knew that this time-control thing was going to wear me out far more quickly than the water-control thing. Sure enough, time was already speeding back up as I hurried over to Amandor and Ebony. I wondered vaguely if I was moving at ultra-speed, or if the whole world had just slowed down. Either way, it was strange. If I _did _have freaky time bending powers, why hadn't they shown up before now?

I took a deep, shuddering breath and kept dragging myself forward, although I had to put more and more effort into it with every second that passed. The whole boat was on a tilt, and I had to clutch the railing to keep from falling off. As I moved awkwardly along, I looked warily across the shoreline, regarding the sharp rocks which lay directly in our path.

And then I saw them.

Time was speeding up rapidly now- I didn't have time to get distracted. But I couldn't help but stare at what lay before me, horror quickly filling my face.

The Sirens were repulsive to look at. In the warped time, they seemed to be frozen, like grotesque creatures from a horror movie. Their bodies were those of vultures, blood-spattered and revolting. But it was their faces which inspired a new terror in me, a terror which I had never experienced before. They were shifting- Ebony, Amandor, ViraTrixten, my mother- but not one of those people would be capable of wearing a facial expression like that. Whatever face they happened to be wearing, the Sirens were smiling grotesque, maniacal smiles- smiles which you would expect to see on a homicidal maniac. Their mouths were caked in rotting flesh and blood, and I wanted to retch just from looking at them. I wondered how on earth anyone could possibly be attracted to these disgusting creatures, what their song could possibly sound like. For a moment, I was tempted to pull the wax from my ears just to see what it was about them that could pull their victims towards them.

All of these thoughts had run through my mind in a matter of seconds, and, as I felt time speed up further, I knew they were seconds that I couldn't afford to lose. We were about to be crushed to death, and I was wasting time. Desperately, as I felt time return to normal, I raised my arms. A wave moved forward to carry us, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't strong enough to support us- not when gravity had already chosen our path. As we were thrown forward, however, I looked up, and locked eyes with a Siren. I saw its face twist into a ghastly leer as it prepared to watch three more victims get smashed to death. And then I felt a tugging in my gut, a boiling fury rise up inside of me. I yelled in frustration- or anger, I still don't know which, and I felt the sea explode around me. The waves rose several metres, and instead of hitting rock, we hit water. The side of the boat splintered but somehow managed to hold, and I cried out as my head slammed against the metal railing. Dazed, I looked around frantically, trying to come to grips with what was happening. All I knew was that the waves were pushing us around with a distinct purpose- pulling us into position, forcing us forward, and I realised. We weren't being saved. We were being redirected. Our poor little fishing boat was hurtling towards the three Sirens, about to smash into them. Perhaps the force of an entire vessel slamming into them would be enough to win this fight, but I doubted it.

Apparently, the universe expected me to survive this collision, kill the three Sirens, scour the entire island for the Ugly Mary Sue, and then escort her back to camp, all to prove a point.

I hated the universe.


	31. Chapter 32

**I was trying to get back into my routine of publishing on Sundays, because school just came back, but my internet was switched off before I got a chance to post this yesterday. Sigh... I hate going back to school. It's like eating nothing but chocolate for your whole life, and then being told that the world's supply of chocolate has run out and that you are going to have to live on vegetables for all eternity.**

**... I have a weird metaphorical mind. **

It may be surprising to hear this, but it's pretty tricky to give a blow-by-blow account of that time I sent a fishing boat flying into three bloodthirsty monsters. Some parts of it I can't even remember, and the parts which I can recall from the depths of my mind seem to be composed only of moments when my brain was on autopilot. For example, I remember screaming until my throat was hoarse, and then I remember that some small part of my brain pointed out how utterly useless this was. The collision itself is just a blank to me, but I do remember the way that, during one split second, I could see Ebony's lips forming silent cuss words. It was strangely eerie, feeling wood splinter underneath me and rocks crash into my bones, but still not being able to hear a thing. At one point, I moved to yank the wax from my ears, unable to stand the pressing silence, but I caught myself just in time. Pulling myself from the broken wreckage, I hoped that the Ugly Mary Sue had exceptional water-manipulation powers, because we were not leaving this island the way we had come.

Glancing to my left, I saw something stirring underneath a pile of splintered wood. My first instinct was to rush forward, my second to leap back. I didn't know what was concealed underneath that wood. It could be Amandor or Ebony, it could be a Siren. I had no way of knowing.

I took a careful step backwards, and my eyes fell upon a twisted bit of metal which had apparently come from the railing which had once run the length of the deck. I wrenched it away from the debris and headed towards the spot where I had seen movement, holding my new weapon aloft. I inched my toe underneath a chunk of wood, and quickly, before I could change my mind, flipped it over.

Something flew out at me, and I instantly raised the metal bar over my head, ready to send it smashing down with all of my strength. However, a hand grabbed hold of my wrist, and I brought my eyes around to see Amandor staring at me.

_Where's Ebony? _he mouthed. I lifted my shoulders in a shrug, and he bit his lip anxiously.

I groaned in frustration, and turned around on the spot. A small part of me was hoping that maybe the Fates would cut me a break. Maybe they'd be nice, and Ebony would appear right in front of us, completely unharmed.

I kicked a piece of rubble on the ground to vent my anger, and glanced up to exchange irritated looks with Amandor. However, he didn't seem to be in the mood. All the colour had drained from his face, and his eyes were locked on something behind me. Slowly, I turned around, and felt my blood run cold.

A Siren was slowly creeping towards us, its eyes locked on our faces. Its movements were distinctly catlike- it kept its body low to the ground and it took slow, deliberate steps. It was strange, watching this feline behaviour coming from a bird-like creature. I watched as its face twisted into a horrible snarl and it bent its scaly legs, ready to pounce.

I glanced around desperately. All I had was a twisted piece of scrap metal as a weapon- it wouldn't do anything except aggravate the monster. Amandor probably didn't have anything useful on him either- so we were, in a word, doomed.

The creature leapt through the air, and I gasped as two gigantic wings unfurled and carried it forward. Even when it was gliding towards us on the wind, this thing still somehow managed to maintain a perfect feline stance. But it also seemed relaxed, expectant. I realised, as it glided gently towards us, that it still must think that we were under its spell.

In the two seconds it took for the Siren to reach us, and in those two seconds, a million thoughts ran through my mind. The first was that, although the monster seemed to be able to carry itself on the wind, it didn't appear to be a very good flier. Its mouth was bared in a strangely sadistic grin, and I got the feeling that this thing wanted to play with its food before it ate it. Its face flashed between the faces of people I knew with rapidly increasing speed, and I found myself half-dazed just from looking at it.

I could list the hundreds of other thoughts that occurred to me, but some were useless, others just plain random. Even the ones that I _did _count as significant weren't exactly ground-breaking. And besides, I didn't really have time to list hundreds of pointless, worthless thoughts, because the Siren was almost upon us. My world suddenly sped up, and, just as that revolting body was about to hit us, I brought my metal pipe swinging upward.

It may not have been the most destructive of weapons, but it had thrown the Siren off. The thing had expected another round of easy prey, but instead it had been met with a blow to the face. As I watched its expression twist in shock, I knew that Amandor had been right. The Sirens simply weren't used to an easy dinner. And they would be even _more _confused if they were attacked.

Without a second thought, I ran towards the Siren, and sent my trusty metal bar smashing down on its head. Its mouth opened in a shriek I couldn't hear, and it took a disorientated step backwards. It stared at me, utterly confused, wondering what on earth it was supposed to do. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amandor treading carefully towards something, but I was suddenly distracted by the Siren, which had evidently decided that dinner was dinner no matter what. It lunged towards me, and I ducked quickly out of the way. The Siren wheeled around and charged me again, and I jumped up onto a broken heap of metal. I was starting to feel like a Spanish bullfighter, except bullfighters used red capes to lure the bulls towards them, and I was using... myself.

The Siren's mouth opened- perhaps it was shrieking, perhaps it was singing. It leapt forward once again, and I jumped sideways to avoid its gaping mouth. However, I had forgotten about the wet metal surface beneath my feet, and I felt my legs slide out from under me as I landed. I ploughed through chunks of metal as I fell downwards, grappling at anything that might have fallen into my path. Something sharp caught me in the cheek, and I felt it scratch at my skin before narrowly missing my eye.

As I tumbled down the small hill of trash, I glimpsed the blue of the ocean. I turned my head left and right, trying to get my bearings, and then felt a wave of adrenaline rush through me as I realised that I was ploughing towards the face of a cliff. A cliff with very sharp rocks below.

I clawed at the air and tried to slow my descent, but I slid through the debris with increasing speed and the sheer drop grew closer every second.

A shadow fell over my face, and I instinctively looked up to see the Siren flying towards me. I wanted to scream in frustration. If the cliffs didn't kill me, the Siren would. Its mouth curved into a smile as it dived, knowing full well that I was trapped. It shot towards me, and I clenched my eyes shut.

Then, out of nowhere, I felt a sharp tugging in my ankle. I cried out as I was jerked around, and I felt a sickening shattering sensation in my ankle_. _Pain flooded my body and my eyes flew open just in time to see the Siren dive too low, trying to get to me before the rocks did. I watched through a haze of pain as it tried to pull out the dangerously low dive, and its clawed foot got snagged in a bit of wire. I couldn't hear it, but I could see its limbs flailing as it was dragged downwards towards the cliffs. The last I saw of that Siren was ViraTrixten's face, twisted in horror, being pulled over the cliff.

I groaned, and tried to heave myself up into a sitting position. However, the moment I did, I slid backwards for several metres, and my ankle felt like it was going to fall off. Panic seized me for a second- I was lying on my back, my head facing the edge of a cliff, with my ankle tangled up in some kind of rope or wire. Taking a deep, calming breath, I lifted my head slowly, the back of my neck straining as I tried to inspect the damage. My ankle appeared to have been trapped by a coil of wire, which had formed a crude noose as I was sliding down the mountain of debris and had successfully managed to get caught on my leg. As I had fallen further, it had tightened around my ankle, resulting in my becoming trapped here. I couldn't move too much, or whatever was anchoring me in place would weaken, and I would go flying off the side of a cliff. My right ankle had been sprained or broken in some way, and it was sending hot rushes of pain through my brain, making it very hard to think straight. In short, it was the worst possible situation I could be in. And the fact that I had to do it with only four senses certainly wasn't helping. I could only hope that somewhere, Amandor and Ebony would be taking out the other two Sirens. And that they would survive. And find the Ugly Mary Sue. And track me down. And free me. Without killing me.

I was so caught up in my train of thought that the pain of my ankle was almost fading. Of course, the moment I thought about it, it flared up again, but it made me think of all those annoying movies where someone would be running and fighting and making dramatic speeches when there were three bullets in their arm. That was starting to make sense to me now.

A piece of trash whipped past my head. I pulled my upper body up in alarm, and cried out as I slid backwards. Whatever was holding me in place clearly wasn't tied down. Trying again, I lifted my head as far as I could, and strained to see what was going on. The sun had decided to ruin my life further by placing itself directly in front of my eyes. I squinted through the haze, probably guaranteeing myself a trip to the eye doctor, and saw two shapes- one was clearly a human, the other a Siren.

The human was holding a weapon of some sort, and I gasped out loud as they drove it directly into the Siren's face. But it wasn't celestial bronze. It couldn't kill any monster.

Whoever the human was, they seemed to be gaining the upper hand. The Siren was backing frantically away from them, and they were following, driving it down the mound of junk. I was tempted to call out, to yell for help, and I had to remind myself that I wouldn't be heard, and even if I could have been, yelling out in the middle of an important battle is a bit stupid.

I watched helplessly as my ally and enemy fought on- neither of them aware of my presence. The human was holding their own, but they were going to tire much more quickly than any Siren.

Suddenly, the Siren leapt back, landing neatly on the metal. Whoever the human was seemed momentarily confused by this strange tactic, and the monster used the one second's hesitation to strike.

It shot forward, talons beared, wings flapping rapidly. It caught the human in the chest, and I couldn't help but call out. The Siren clearly intended to take its victim off to some distant cave and devour them.

Fortunately, the Fates had other ideas.

My cry of horror quickly turned into one of shock as the human hit the Siren in the stomach with their weapon- hard.

The effect was instantaneous. The Siren couldn't be hurt by the ordinary metal, but the shock was enough for its grip on the human to slacken. As they slipped and fell, they grabbed hold of the Siren's wing, dragging it downwards. What followed was nothing more than a small playground scuffle, with each fighter trying to gain the upper hand, but neither succeeding. Fists punched, talons raked across skin, and all of a sudden, the Siren was losing its balance, falling down the steep slope, towards the rocks below. It hadn't been nearly as lucky as me.

I stared at the unknown human who forced themselves onto their feet, clutching their arm. A terrible thought occurred to me- they had no idea I was here. What if they left, with me still trapped on this mound of junk.

As carefully as I could, I lifted my arms, keeping the rest of my body very still. Movement draws the eye, I've been told, so I tried to wave my arms as quickly as possible without getting myself killed.

I didn't dare look up and see if they had spotted me, I just kept waving, feeling like a bit of an idiot. When a shadow fell across my face, I almost wanted to burst into tears with relief.

It was Amandor. He was balancing carefully on the slope, and I knew that at that moment, he was in more danger than me. At least I had something to tie me down. He knelt beside me as best as he could, and grabbed one of my arms. He hauled me sideways, and I felt the wire that was wrapped around my ankle give. Inch by inch, I was dragged so that my feet were facing the cliff. I dug my left heel into the ground and planted all my weight on it, while Amandor detangled the wire from my ankle. I flinched if whenever he so much as brushed the skin, and it took much longer than it should have. But finally, I was free. I sat up gingerly, motioning that we should get out of here, when he rolled his eyes, leaned over, and yanked the wax out of my ear.

I gaped at him.

"What're you doing?" I demanded, feeling like a bit of an idiot for not noticing that he had taken out his wax earplugs. "Just because they went over a cliff, doesn't mean they're dead! And there's still another one running around!"

"Don't worry," he said absently. "She'll have taken care of it by now."

"Ebony?" I snapped, giving him a glare. I yanked the other piece of wax out of my ear. "Are you _serious?"_

"No, not Ebony," he said, shaking his head. "The Ugly Mary Sue."


	32. Chapter 33

**It's so very, very late. I know. I'm sorry. Schoolwork, study, and all the usual excuses. Enjoy! **

I was well aware of the fact that I wasn't a very good person. I was selfish, arrogant, manipulative, nasty, and generally I just wasn't too much fun to be around. However, for all my shortcomings, I did have a few things going for me. For one, I would never just sit around and let everyone else do all the work. I always had to be in the thick of the action, and I always had to be the centre of attention. When I limped along beside Amandor, I was struck by how _odd _it felt to simply hand over all of the responsibilities and glory to someone else. I was relying entirely upon to Ugly Mary Sue to beat the Sirens, and I hadn't even _met _her. Perhaps it was the throbbing pain of my ankle that was clouding my thoughts, but my brain felt completely exhausted. I just wanted to lie down and sleep. All of the adrenaline which had been pumping through me during my little free falling adventure had left my system, and my newfound exhaustion was making my legs reluctant to even move.

As we clambered down the mountain of stuff, I realised that what I had really been lying on was the broken back half of our little boat, covered in a layer of rubble. I felt a little sad, looking at the broken form of our poor old boat. It was like I'd just led a puppy to its death.

It took me a second for my subconscious that I was getting teary over a boat, and another for me to mentally slap myself for it. This wasn't the time for sentiment. My ankle was hurting like crazy, and it seemed to be getting worse every second. I was completely exhausted, and if a Siren decided to show up now, I was dead.

I sensed the Ugly Mary Sue long before I saw her. I could feel the air around us change somehow- it became lighter, somehow more fragrant. The pain in my ankle seemed to dull, and a faint golden buttery light shone down over everything. I felt my strength slowly returning, and I half expected to hear happy birds chirping away in the distance. The setting was completely wrong, of course- it felt as though a Disney princess had just walked onto the set of a horror movie. Her presence didn't belong here. Even so, it was though someone had somehow taken everything that was good and happy, liquefied it, turned it into a perfume, and sprayed it all over the island. It was a slightly weird way of looking at it, but it was the best conclusion I could draw. Liquefied happiness.

Good gods, what was happening to me? I shook my head, trying to clear the optimism and happiness from it. I hadn't felt this cheerful since... ever. And I'd also never felt so inferior. How could even call myself a Mary Sue when compared to this perfection? Whoever was radiating this... happiness was clearly the most intelligent, powerful, incredible-

Whoa. I needed help.

"Almost there," Amandor said. I noticed that his voice sounded perfectly pleasant. Happy, almost. It was disorientating.

"Um..." I said slowly. Even _that _sounded cheerful. I had been about to drop a sarcastic remark, but it had melted out of my brain. A feeling of peaceful comfort was stirring in the back of my mind, and for a moment I forgot that I was limping across a wasteland.

"Here we are!" Amandor said brightly. I tried to reply, but all I could do was make a weird clucking noise.

_Gods, _she was ugly. I instantly felt like a cruel, vicious monster for thinking that, but it was true. The Ugly Mary Sue had a mat of tangled hair covering her head, ghostly white skin which was covered in blotches, and her face... I felt a growing sense of pity settle in my gut. She had the kind of face which instantly inspired sadness. I felt like hugging her, she was so unfortunate in her looks. And that's when I realised what her secret was. No-one _really _felt sorry for a gorgeous supermodel, no matter how tragic her back-story was. The true way to inspire pity was to be pitiful. And the Ugly Mary Sue sure had that nailed. She had scars covering her face and arms. Her eyes were big, green and sad. She was wearing an old dress which looked as though it had been dragged through several monster's throats.

She was standing next to Ebony, who was staring at her in utter confusion. They were in a shallow cave which had somehow been eroded into the side of the cliff, and I was guessing that it was the Ugly Mary Sue's sanctuary.

Her eyes flicked towards Amandor and me, and a grotesque smile lit up her face. I sighed. I felt like a servant of Hades whenever I thought a vaguely mean thought about her.

"Marie Susanne," she said, still smiling. Her voice was like a warm scent of spring bursting through the cold winter night.

I repressed a gag as I shook my head back and forth in disgust. Did I really just _think _that?

"I have waited a long, long time to see you all," she said, smiling at us all in turn. I stared at her in disbelief, fighting the waves of metaphorical garbage which were threatening to flood my mind.

"I have taken care of the Sirens," she said. "Sit down."

I half-hopped towards a rock which looked like it wouldn't make too much of an uncomfortable seat when the Ugly Mary Sue zeroed in on my awkward movement.

"Oh, you poor _dear!_" she cried, floating over to me. She bent down, placed a hand on my ankle, and the pain instantly subsided. I gaped at her.

"Sit down!" she said, staring around at all of us. "I have _so much _to tell you about!"

Amandor instantly obeyed, plonking down on a rock. Ebony just looked around, utterly bewildered, and sat down on the floor. I tested out my ankle gingerly. It seemed to be completely healed, but I walked carefully over to my chosen seat anyway.

The Ugly Mary Sue sat down on her own rock, which was right next to Ebony. She beamed out at us, and for a few sweet, sweet seconds, there was silence. Then she began to speak.

"My name," she said, "is Anaroullettalina Tempest C'oralina Mermallidia Taneta." She paused, as though she expected us to burst into applause. She was met with three blank faces, and gave a small half-smile. "My friends call me Anaroullettalina. Well, they would, if... if I had any friends." Tears welled in her eyes as she smiled around at us, her voice cracking in the most heartbreaking way at the word _friends. _I was liking her less and less every second. "I am the daughter of Ouranos."

I blinked at her. "Ouranos was hacked up into tiny little pieces thousands of years ago." She smiled at me, not even caring about my rudeness. I felt like a demon girl who liked feeding on baby seals and kittens as I stared into those big green eyes.

"True enough. But he did have two daughters. Twins, in fact. Myself and Aphrodite."

I frowned as the old story came back to me. When Ouranos had been chopped up by his son Kronos, his body parts had been cast into the sea, and had formed Aphrodite. In many ways, that kind of made Aphrodite the oldest goddess. As far as I had heard, however, there had never been anyone else.

"I was born the same way as Aphrodite," Anaroullettalina said sadly. However, while she was born beautiful, I was born..." she choked back a sob, and more tears filled her eyes. "I was more powerful than Aphrodite, and when the Olympians came to power, I knew they felt threatened by me. They pretended to accept me for a while, but eventually they cast me onto this island for all of eternity."

"Wait... so you're a _goddess?" _I demanded, gaping at her.

"Yes. Possibly the most powerful of them all. It's a curse!" she shrieked, a random fit of hysteria suddenly possessing her. I almost fell backwards off my seat in shock. The Ugly Mary Sue stared around at us, her bottom lip trembling and her eyes shining.

"It's the perfect prison," Amandor muttered. "You'd never be able to escape, because they'd just sing you back."

"Yoo neva blokdd ur eirs?" Ebony asked, staring at her. I raised my eyebrows. Ebony did have a point there. Surely the world's most powerful goddess would have thought to stick her fingers in her ears?

"It... it wouldn't work," Anaroullettalina sniffled. "My hearing was so good that no spell I used would work. I was trapped here. _TRAPPED!"_ Her green eyes suddenly turned to a dark, depressing purple as she stared out at the ocean. I shared a panicked glance with Amandor. Had we really been _that _deluded once?

"I... I was abandoned here. Eventually, people forgot all about me. Nobody knew about my existence. Nobody cared. But still, I had hope. A beacon of light shone in the never ending darkness. You see, I am blessed," she paused dramatically, which allowed me time to suppress the retching fit which threatened to overwhelm me, "with the power of prophecy."

"No kidding," I murmured.

"I saw that one day, my salvation would come. And now it has." She smiled, and spread her arms wide. "You have saved not only me, but the fate of the whole world."

"Are you going to explain to us why Lord Voldemort and a bunch of Slayers turned up in a universe dominated by Greek Mythology?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Good. Just checking."

"You must understand, my dears, that the very description of a Mary Sue is someone who is more perfect than anyone else. If there are multiple Mary Sues, and if they are all of equal perfection, then none of them are really Mary Sues."

I shot a quick look at Ebony, just to make sure her brain wasn't melting or anything. She had a completely blank, zombie-like expression on her face, but she wasn't smoking at the ears or anything, so I assumed that all of this thinking wasn't doing too much damage.

"So... we aren't Mary Sues?" Amandor asked, glancing around anxiously.

"No. As you may have noticed, there are a rather large amount of Mary Sues running about. However, the numbers have grown too much for the universe, and now all of our worlds are colliding into one another. There are now so many Mary Sues populating the world that we are beginning to lose some of our perfection."

"_Excuse _me?" I spluttered. "We're all as perfect as we've ever been!"

"Really," the Ugly Mary Sue said coolly. "Haven't you _noticed _your senses fading? When was the last time you obsessed over your looks? Your superior senses have been rapidly draining away, and you are now no better than _normal _people."

I opened my mouth to object, and then closed it again in frustration. Holy Hades, she was right. I didn't even _care _about Nico anymore. He was like, _twelve _or something. My internal clock, calendar and calculators hadn't been working for _weeks. _I didn't care about how I looked. Dear gods, I didn't even care about the fact that I didn't care about how I looked!

"You're right," Amandor said, sounding stunned. I glared at him furiously.

"I always am, my dears. And that isn't all. _Others_ from different worlds altogether- such as your _Lord Voldemort _and _Edward Cullen_, have also been dropped into our universe, due to the imbalances caused by the alarmingly high population of Mary Sues. I can assure you, this is only going to get worse. Soon, our whole world will be populated by strange fictional characters, and, on a _much _more concerning note, our Mary Sue powers will weaken further. Our eyes will cease to change colour, our powers will fade, and we will grow," she suppressed a shudder, "ordinary _brown hair_ in replacement of all of our beautiful exotic hair colours."

"_What?" _I choked. "That... that's just..."

"A fate too awful to imagine," The Ugly Mary Sue said. "Fortunately, there _is _a way we can stop it."

"Hang on," Amandor said slowly. "_You _gave that prophecy my dad mentioned in Athens!"

"Correct," she said, beaming out at us. "You all have a special fate indeed."

"And that would be?" I demanded, staring intently at her.

"It is quite simple, my dears. The only way to set things right is to ensure that there is only _one."_

"You want to kill all of the other Mary Sues?" I half-choked.

"I wish to set things right. You see, I am the goddess of Mary Sues."

"_What?"_

"Well, not _officially, _but I decided that it was the best title for me. And I have the power to restore balance to the world."

"Fantastic," Amandor said. "And you haven't done this yet because...?"

"Because I did not have the acknowledgement of _anyone. _Us gods need worship. We need people to believe in us. Even I, the most powerful being in existence, need some form of worship. All I need is one soul to join my cause, and then I can set things right."

"By killing a whole bunch of people," I said.

"No. I will not _kill _them, as such, I will simply... put a few of them into a vegetative state. I will organise the whole universe so that a problem such as this never arises again. One Mary Sue can live out her plotline in her world, and when her author abandons her, another Mary Sue moves in to take her place. Understand?"

"What's the catch?" Amandor demanded.

"Well, after I rearrange the entire cosmos, you may feel slightly woozy for a few minutes, and you will have no recollection whatsoever of your time spent in this world. You won't remember me, each other, or anything else which may have occurred."

"That's _insane," _Amandor demanded. "You can't expect us to actually do that, can you?"

"You will be free to live out your normal, Mary Sue lives!" The Ugly Mary Sue cried passionately. "No-one will hate you anymore! You will be free to do as you wish! Things will return to the way they should be! All I need is one soul! One person to join my cause, and that will give me enough power to set things in motion."

"No way," Amandor all but snarled.

"Im not doin dat!" Ebony cried. "id neva c Mary or Amed... Amindel... Armandol eva agen!"

"It's not happening," I said firmly.

I expected Anaroullettalina to plead with us, to beg us to join her cause, but she simply smiled and regarded us each in turn.

"One of you is lying," she said quietly. "Your friend, ViraTrixten, her life will be restored. Did I mention that? One of you is not being honest with me. You will join my cause eventually. In the meantime," she glanced over at the dark sky, and at the stars which were just beginning to appear, "I will ask you to sleep. Dinner won't be a problem. You won't feel hunger in my presence."

One hour after she said that, Amandor, Ebony and I all curled up next to a tiny, flickering fire and slowly drifted off to sleep. Five hours after her words were spoken, a figure rose next to the campfire and trudged over to where the Ugly Mary Sue sat on a rock, glowing eerily in the dark and smiling an angelic smile.

"Is something wrong, my dear?" she asked.

"Umm..." the voice was uncertain, but was not slurred in any form. The speaker had obviously spent hours waiting for the others to drift off.

"I just wanted to say... I join your cause."

She smiled.

"Thank you, my dear. That was all I needed."


End file.
